Succession Planning Strategy - Research Paper Example

While aging of the staff is a major contributor to the commencement of the issue, it is also true that a lack of skill levels in the staff also makes succession planning a major issue. This is particularly true in the case of the public sector. Nearly 50% of the people employed by the US government is eligible to retire, says Douglas Braddock (1999). One in five senior executives of Fortune 500 companies will have to retire before the year-end. All this mean that succession planning is becoming more meaningful to government offices as much as it is for private enterprises.

He further says that the manpower requirement due to replacements (34.7 million) in organizations will far outstrip the requirements due to an increase in business (20.3 million). While on one side there is a vacancy coming up, on the other side there are no talented and qualified people to hire from. According to Manpower (Jan 2006), nearly 44% of employers find difficulty in getting the right kind of person with the required skill level to fill the vacancy that is existing in the company. The succession planning is different from the replacement planning in the sense that while replacement planning will look for one single person and find a replacement for him from the market.

Whereas in the case of succession planning, the company needs to consider who would take his position and who in turn would occupy once the succeeding person is promoted and so on. This would mean that the existing people have to be evaluated and kept ready for promotion and also the succession streak right to the end of the entire hierarchy where someone will be taken in from outside to fill the gap. The Life Cycle of the workforce has to be completely taken care of including the retirement and succession thereof.

Every employee should have an appropriate standby option in case he is to leave the employment. While this is normally looked at as a replacement plan for the individual, similar planning is needed for the succession too.