Succession Planning and Critical Roles
By Redaktion techport.ai, HR-Beratung · Last updated on
Ask your management which five people the company cannot afford to lose. The answer will come quickly. Then ask who could replace these five people. The answer will take longer, and often it is: nobody, at least not in the short term. This risk is not on any balance sheet, but it determines whether the strategy will remain viable in terms of personnel in two years.
Succession planning is not a programme for the executive board. It is a method to secure the handful of roles whose unfilled status harms the company, from the Head of Purchasing to the sole person who understands the old plant control system.
How You'll Notice It
- Critical roles are known, but nowhere documented.
- The incumbents of these roles are, on average, significantly older than the workforce.
- Succession is discussed when the resignation or pension application is submitted.
- Internal candidates are informed of their suitability when it is too late to develop them.
Why This Happens
Succession planning has no natural deadline. It competes with day-to-day business and loses out because the risk remains abstract until it materialises. Added to this is discomfort: talking about succession means talking about the departure of people who are still present. Without a process, deadline, and responsible parties, nothing happens.
Our Approach
- Identify critical roles. Not the most important people, but the roles whose vacancy endangers turnover, security, or operational capability. We assess each role by the impact of a vacancy and the time to refil. This rarely yields more than twenty roles.
- Build a successor pool. For each role, we name internal candidates with a time horizon: immediately ready, in one to two years, in three to five years. Where there is no one in-house, this becomes a recruitment task with lead time.
- Implement development plans. Each person in the pool receives a plan with specific experiences: project leadership, representation, rotation, qualification. This is agreed in the development interview and documented in the system.
- Review annually. Roles, pool, and plans are discussed with management once a year. The HR system provides the data for this: age structure, fluctuation risk, development status.
What You Gain
- The company understands its key personnel risk and can manage it.
- Talent stays because they see a perspective that goes beyond the next job title.
- External searches begin with lead time instead of under pressure, and this significantly reduces costs.
From Our Projects
When we assess critical roles with management, the list regularly includes roles that no one had previously considered: the person who handles customs clearance, the administrator of the payroll system, the master technician with the sole inspection qualification. Leadership positions are usually better secured than these functions. And in almost every project, the average age of critical role incumbents is higher than that of the workforce.
Good to Know
According to calculations by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (German Economic Institute), approximately 1.3 million people will reach retirement age annually until 2036, while only about 800,000 will enter the workforce. In many industrial companies, the average age in key technical functions is over 50. Age structure analysis is therefore the first step in any succession planning, and it can be extracted from any HR system in an hour.
Frequently asked questions
Should candidates know they are in the pool?
Yes, in most cases. Covert pools create expectations in no one and disappointment in everyone. Transparency does not mean promising a succession, but offering development.
How do we handle the works council?
Succession planning affects selection guidelines and individual personnel measures. We recommend discussing the criteria for critical roles and the selection into the pool with the works council before any names are mentioned.
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Further reading
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