Succession Planning is the process of identifying the critical positions, skills and behaviors needed for an organization to deliver its short-term and long-term goals. This is achieved by aligning HR strategy to corporate strategy, identifying skill gaps in the organization’s ability to meet those challenges and then developing a strategy, to upskill, reskill and hire for skill. This has never been as critical as now.

How can organizations today develop their staff for the business needs of tomorrow? Across the board industry is finding it difficult to place people in open jobs within their organization. For organizations to get ahead and tackle upcoming issues, they should look internally at the people who are currently filling roles that are in the decline and prepare them for emerging roles by upskilling the staff.

Just like competitive business landscapes are constantly changing and evolving, our teams and individual skills do the same. As individuals, we need to have the willingness to ensure that our skills are always current and growing. As leaders we need to ensure that our employees have the capacity and opportunity to do just that.

In the “new normal” the three main reasons organizations struggle to compete or adopt new technologies are:
1. Skills gaps in the local labor market
2. In ability to attract specialized talent
3. Skills gaps amongst the organization’s leadership.