Procedures and Benefits of Implementing Executive Career Coaching and Succession Planning

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Management, as everyone knows, is all about planning, organizing and controlling the scarce resources available to achieve certain goals. The resources are not just the material assets or money, the biggest challenge these days is to manage the human resource of an organization effectively.

The job switching rates over the past few years have increased dramatically, and this has compelled HR professionals to think about leadership development and succession planning. Selection, recruitment, training and development tasks seem to be easier now compared to the task of retaining good employees. More and more organizations are thus introducing and experimenting with new ideas to retain and groom their talent for a relatively longer period of time.

One of these newer ideas is the implementation of succession planning within the organization. This concept has brought many benefits to organizations including the higher retention rate of human capital and reduction in recruitment and compensation costs. This strategy utilizes the basic principle of management, i.e. choose a proactive approach rather than reactive. Do not confuse it with the concept of matching employees with forecasted vacancies; instead it opens a whole new trend of setting future directions of the organization as well as setting career paths for the employees. This makes the employees committed to the organization goals and success.

Hiring External Consultants

The biggest challenge organizations face when they decide to implement succession planning is the lack of resources and expertise within the company. Organizations that are in the introductory phase should go for hiring consultants and coaches from outside. External assistance in this regard will have professionals and qualified individuals plus the resources of the organization that will not be wasted on experimentation and training HR managers. Of course, they can gradually train their HR managers to carry on the task of consulting and coaching effectively.

Implementing Coaching As a Regular Feature

Executive Career Coaching is a latest trend in successful organizations. In this a career coach identifies each employee's strengths, interests, key motivators and values. He then helps the employees in choosing the right career path for them. Once the career path has been chosen, the coach then guides the employees in their preparation for their next promotion. This strategy has proved to minimize the chances of quitting at an executive level, since the employees were correctly matched with the best suited designations and were involved in the process of continuous career development.

Rewards

Endless benefits are associated with the implementation of career coaching and succession planning; however, I am highlighting just a few of them:

Continuous Development

By introducing the succession plan to employees and career guidance by external coaches, employees become more focused in their efforts and if they lack something they discuss it freely with their coaches. This makes them more confident and they can become expert managers of their field.

Prepare Employees for Future Leadership Roles

One of the best outcomes of this strategy is the grooming of regular employees for leadership roles they are going to play in the future. In the long-term it is going to yield organizational leaders that are loyal, skilled, know the organization and the industry well and will strive for profits and motivate upcoming employees in an efficient manner.

Sharp Decline in Recruitment Costs

When you hire someone from the outside for an executive post, you pay a minimum 25- 33% more than the remuneration you pay to your existing employees. By retaining and promoting someone from inside the organization, you save a lot of costs in selection, recruitment and training of a new individual. Most of the time workers from outside at executive posts ask for compensation greater than that of your current employee's package.

Employer is Able to Maintain a Track Record of Employees

External employees reveal little information on their development needs and weak areas, whatever the employer knows is through their evaluation during the interview or assessment test. On the other hand, employees that come forward from the company's own divisions have everything open in front of the employer and can be evaluated very thoroughly on each and every little aspect of management.

Overall Profitability of Organization Increases

Employees' career counseling is not just good for workers; it helps the organization in setting strategic directions for itself and forecasting issues that are generally overlooked by many strategists. The employees are then matched and polished for the future management and leadership roles required to accomplish the preset goals and missions.

From the above discussed points any company's top management or HR managers must be now able to visualize the benefits they are going to gain by implementing the executive career management program in their organization. This is not just an excellent strategy to retain, motivate and develop employees for future leadership roles; it is beneficial for the organization's overall profits in the long term as well.

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