What is succession planning?
Succession planning is a strategic process to engage and define career paths for your future leaders within an organization and ensure business continuity. By preparing transitions in key leadership roles due to retirements, departures, or unforeseen events, organizations can maintain operational stability and protect stakeholder interests. This proactive approach fosters agile leadership development and enhances organizational resilience in a dynamic business environment.
Ready to build a future-ready leadership pipeline?
Secure your company’s future with Mercer | Mettl’s succession planning solutions
Assess
and identify leadership potential within your workforce
Identify
key competencies and positions for a succession plan
Categorize
roles into highly critical, critical and non-critical categories
Develop
a suitable learning and development plan for different roles
Track
ROI, potential gaps in planning and areas of improvement
Continue
to retain and preserve the invaluable knowledge and skills of your predecessors
Reduce risks and build stronger, agile leadership pipelines ready to meet future challenges
Vacancy risk
Identify and train internal talent to fill critical roles before they become vacant.
Readiness risk
Prepare successors for leadership responsibilities through targeted development programs.
Transition risk
Establish structured onboarding processes to support new leaders in assimilating effectively into their roles.
Portfolio risk
Align succession planning with strategic business goals to ensure optimal deployment of talent across the organization.
Move beyond reactive planning to a proactive succession planning strategy
Sensing
- Review of job descriptions
- Focused group discussions
- Visionary interviews
Creation & customization
- Personality & behavioral tools
- Cognitive tools
- Domain MCQs
- Simulators
Administration
- Choose from our question bank
- Create new questions
- Select the question’s difficulty level
Offline activities (in case of blended)
- Group activity & discussion
- One-to-one role play
- Competency-based interview or behavioral event interview
Case study presentation
- Report generation & customization
- Global & organizational benchmarks
- Strengths & areas of improvement
- Interview guides & individual development plans
Carve out the blueprint for your future leadership with Mercer | Mettl
Skills framework
Map roles to proficiency levels, ensuring alignment with your business goals through our technical and behavioral competency framework.
Integrated approach
Assess critical experiences, domain knowledge and essential behavioral competencies in your future leaders.
Holistic success profiles
Leverage our expertise on career mapping and outline potential career paths within your organization.
Career mapping
Assess critical experiences, domain knowledge and essential behavioral competencies in your future leaders.
Proven outcomes
Leverage our expertise on career mapping and outline potential career paths within your organization.
Commitment to your success
Leverage our expertise on career mapping and outline potential career paths within your organization.
Embed succession planning across your talent management strategy
Leadership potential
Develop future leaders by assessing and nurturing employees with the potential for growth and leadership.
High-potential identification
Systematically identify and cultivate key talent to enhance retention and reduce turnover.
Managerial potential
Evaluate and develop essential managerial competencies to prepare effective future leaders.
Diversity, equity & inclusion
Foster an inclusive workforce by identifying diverse talent for leadership roles.
Manage leadership risk with customized succession planning solutions
Ensure continuity for your critical roles with confidence, objectivity, and precision!
A diverse array of tools to assist with your succession planning needs
Our succession planning solutions empower organizations to identify, develop, and retain top talent, ensuring a seamless transition of leadership and safeguarding the future of your business.
Quickly and accurately assess your candidates using our seamless online tool.
Scientifically validated assessments for a comprehensive overview.
Gain insights into real work behaviors using our behavioral evaluation and simulation tools.
Measure the candidate’s digital aptitude to innovate in a given business situation.
Easily gather structured feedback to achieve employee development goals.
Ensure your candidate possesses the requisite functional knowledge.
Building relationships
![Modern Foods Industry Success Story [Client Testimonial]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ozwop59lbh4/hqdefault.jpg)
The validity of Mercer | Mettl's assessments is exceptionally robust. It enabled us to funnel people who were precisely the type we needed. Mercer | Mettl helped us to accurately identify high-potential candidates within our internal team.
- Sonal Kapur Sinha
CHRO, Modern Foods
Customer success stories
Here’s how we helped our customers transform their strategies and build winning teams
About
Modern Foods, a brand that introduced the concept of bread to India, was launched in 1965 as Modern Bakeries (India) Limited. It later rebranded as Modern Foods and branched into newer portfolios with multiple product offerings in the bread and cake domain. The company has 100,000 stores, manufacturing in 40 factories across India.
Business challenges
- A standardized and focused sales hiring strategy to build a high-performing sales unit
- Identifying high-potentials from its existing sales team.
Solution
- A virtual assessment and development center was implemented for easy scalability, logistical comfort, and ease of access for candidates.
- Optimum job performance and future potential forecast with tasks and activities simulating the actual job environment.
- An assessment battery containing psychometric, cognitive, and situational judgment tests, with an external assessor.
- Immediate insightful reports to make timely decisions for organizational restructuring and workforce optimization.
Impact
- Reduction in new-hire attrition in sales by 33%
- Improvement in screening accuracy by 66%
- Improvement in performance of 75% of candidates hired through Mercer | Mettl’s assessments
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
The primary purpose of succession planning is to ensure the continuity and stability of an organization by preparing for future leadership needs and critical roles. Key objectives include:
- Talent development: Identifying and nurturing high-potential employees to fill key positions as they become available.
- Risk mitigation: Reducing the risk of leadership gaps that can disrupt operations and impact business performance.
- Organizational resilience: Ensuring that the organization can adapt to changes, such as retirements, resignations, or unexpected departures.
- Strategic alignment: Aligning talent development with the organization’s long-term goals and objectives.
- Employee engagement: Enhancing employee morale and retention by providing clear career paths and development opportunities.
Examples of succession planning:
- Leadership development programs: Organizations may implement programs specifically designed to prepare high-potential employees for future leadership roles through training, mentorship, and job shadowing.
- Mentorship initiatives: Pairing experienced leaders with emerging talent to provide guidance, share knowledge, and facilitate skill development.
- Job rotation: Encouraging employees to work in different roles or departments to gain a broader understanding of the organization and develop diverse skills.
- Performance reviews: Regularly assessing employee performance and potential to identify candidates for advancement and tailor development plans accordingly.
- Emergency succession plans: Creating contingency plans for critical roles to ensure that there is a clear process for filling positions in the event of sudden departures.
Types of succession planning:
- Leadership succession planning: Focused on preparing individuals for leadership roles, ensuring that there are qualified candidates ready to step into key positions.
- Emergency succession planning: Aimed at addressing unexpected vacancies in critical roles, ensuring that there is a plan in place for immediate replacements.
- Long-term succession planning: Involves strategic planning for future leadership needs over an extended period, aligning with the organization’s growth and development goals.
- Talent pool succession planning: Identifying a broader group of potential successors across various levels of the organization, rather than focusing solely on top leadership roles.
- Functional succession planning: Concentrating on specific departments or functions within the organization to ensure that there are qualified individuals ready to take on key roles within those areas.
