Today, succession planning has become a talent management tool that reaches to all levels in an organization, not just the top.  The goals of succession planning have changed a bit to reflect this difference.  A contemporary succession plan not only identifies candidates for succeeding senior executives and development plans for them, but also includes elements for identifying and leveraging core competencies throughout the organization. The goals of succession planning are essentially unchanged: 1) to ensure appropriate leaders are placed in key positions throughout the organization, 2) to ensure the right talent is being recruited and developed to move into key positions as needed, 3) to ensure retention and development of intellectual capital for the future, 4) to ensure core values are modeled and reinforced throughout the organization, and 5) to generate, monitor, and review a plan for replacing planned or unplanned talent loss.

FirstStep’s Approach to Succession Planning We begin by identifying the strategically crucial positions within various levels of the organization.  We then create a KASE Factor Assessment and assess the incumbents in those key positions.  This provides us with a gap analysis between the talent currently available and what is desired. We then create a KASE Matrix that has multiple strategic purposes, including: ·         Developing recruiting and selection interviewing guidelines tied to talent development needs ·         Establishing strategy-centered training curricula ·         Establishing self-managed career development programs ·         Creating employee-managed career path programs ·         Establishing performance metrics Finally, with the completion of these elements, we work with our clients to create a succession plan and employ a world-class technology solution for implementing, evaluating, and measuring the plan’s effectiveness.

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