There are many roles within general practice and whilst some people will stay in the same job for their entire working life, others often decide they want to do something different and change their job every few years; this is now considered the norm. However, something that perhaps requires more attention than it receives is the criticality of succession planning.

But why is it so important? A well-structured succession plan can be an invaluable tool to support employee retention as it helps to identify the talented people in your organisation who could be given an opportunity to step into a new role and progress their career.

Often considered only relevant to senior positions, succession planning can be applied to lots of roles. After all, you want to have the right number of people with the necessary skills to ensure you can fulfil your organisation’s objectives. So, whilst some practices may focus purely on critical roles, you can use succession planning for leadership development, unearthing the leaders of the future already working in your organisation.

Objectivity is key to the succession process as you need to maintain a realistic perspective and consider all the available information to ensure you identify the person who’s best suited to step up to the job. Effectively, you’re nurturing and growing talent in the hope of building on the individual’s knowledge, experience and understanding of the organisation whilst also retaining staff, thereby enhancing continuity.

When carried out correctly, succession planning supports business continuity and helps to make your organisation ready for the challenges of the future. It also enables you to gain a valuable insight into the current and potential capabilities of your team.

Where no plan exists, you run the risk of leaving some roles, potentially critical roles, vacant for extended periods of time. This can lead to uncertainty and cause employees to become disgruntled. Then they may also consider their own position and decide to move on.

By having a succession plan in place, you’re creating a structure for training and development; you’re building a talent pipeline. You’re also demonstrating your well-led capability to the CQC by showing how “high-quality leadership is sustained through safe, effective and inclusive recruitment and succession planning”.

Creating a succession plan isn’t a one-person task and it needs to involve different members of the team as they’re likely to have a greater understanding of the potential of those they work closely with. A common mistake is to focus on an individual’s past performance and not on their potential. Past performance isn’t aways an indicator of their future performance; focus on what they’re doing now and the potential they have to fulfil different roles in your organisation.

If you want to retain that key knowledge and expertise, enhance your employees’ career paths, and plan and prepare for the future, it’s time to develop the talent and leadership in your organisation; it’s time to develop your succession plan.

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” – Alan Lakein

Useful resources

Business development plan [PLUS]
Recruitment policy and procedure [PLUS]
Partnership guidance document [PLUS]

Part of the Practice Index Learning Package

• HR Masterclass
• Change Management Masterclass

Part of Practice Index Training

• Succession planning
• Transformational leadership
• Performance coaching
• Leadership and Management Bundle