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Succession planning help

businessmeeting30381062.jpgWhen top executives and leaders of companies decide to move on to bigger and better things, the employees left behind need to learn how to adapt to new management styles along with assuming new roles and responsibilities. Succession planning is the process of training personnel and developing smooth organizational systems so that your employees will be able to easily step into new roles when leaders leave the company.

As succession planning helps you and your staff prepare for the long-term outlook of the company, it also helps the short-term outlook. Your employees will be able to improve their performance and workplace capabilities. Employees will start to become happier in their job as they start to gain more experience due to the new roles and opportunities that are available. When this happens, your turnover ratio will decrease and you will have a staff that is happier with their jobs and their overall career development.

Succession planning is a great way to reduce risk. When the company prepares for the loss of an employee, they are prepared to create a smooth transition. This makes the departure much easier on everyone and everyone knows their role and responsibility. When people know what they are required to do, there is a smaller margin of error, thereby reducing risk.

If you need help with succession planning, here are 4 simple steps you need to follow:

Step # 1 - Identifying roles
The first thing you must do is identify everyone's roles. This will involve researching their current job duties and seeing how they intertwine with the job duties of the manager or individual that is leaving.

Step # 2 - Employee capabilities
Once you identify the roles that need to be filled, you need to find out if your employees are capable of these new roles and responsibilities. It is going to be difficult for your employees to branch out and assume new roles and you must look for different ways to help them. It is important to talk to your employees and find out if they are comfortable taking on more responsibilities. Unfortunately some people will commit to it and they end up getting overwhelmed within a few weeks. Always have a second option in case you have employees that cannot handle the pressure of more responsibility.

Step # 3 - Prepare employees
Before you just dump extra responsibilities on your employees, you need to prepare them for their new roles. Create handbooks that clearly define all of their new roles and responsibilities so they have something to reference as they step into their new job duties. It's not going to be easy so you must spend plenty of time training them. Proper training goes a long way and it will help you and your employees more than you realize. If possible, have them job shadow the person that is going to be leaving the company for a couple of days. They will be able to see them in action and get a feel for how they do their job so they can learn how to make it their own.

Preparing for the business to continue running smoothly is going to be hard and it can only happen if you have competent staff members at your side. Finding a successor is going to be difficult enough, especially a person that can step into that role and easily manage a broad range of personalities. As a manager or member of upper management, you must take on the role of preparing people for change. There isn't one exact method that works, but if you prepare your employees beforehand, the succession will happen smoothly and everyone will be happier.

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