According to Wikipedia, Succession planning is a process for identifying and developing internal personnel with the potential to fill key or critical organizational positions. Succession planning ensures the availability of experienced and capable employees that are prepared to assume these roles as they become available.
Why is this, a hard concept to master? The benefits to the organizations are numerous. Let’s look at a simple succession plan for volunteers working on a Parent Teacher Association at an elementary school. For years school xyz has put on an auction. The school utilizes a chair that rallies her friends to fill various jobs such as gift acquisition, presentation of gifts, bidding, and pick up room. For years the school has wanted to add an online component to their live auction but have never been able to work through the details to accomplish this. Each year some old and many new volunteers, take over positions and must apply the “on the job training” model to pull off the event. This makes for a stressful situation and the position looks overwhelming and unappealing to potential new volunteers. By the time the volunteer is comfortable with their position they are ready to move on.
A simple succession plan can be implemented to help the auction move forward and increase revenue.
1. Every Chair must have a co-chair or two
2. Each Chair must keep a binder full of step by step instructions and copies of receipts, timelines, and volunteer phone numbers. (They may choose to keep their records online and provide a copy of the records on a disc.)
The Co-Chair volunteers, with the intent to one day become the chair. For the first event, a chair keeps adding to the steps that he/she follows along the way to a successful event. If a written document exists, then the Chair just has to update the list and make minor changes.
The result is not only a well planned event but one that can be easily carried out for several successful years.
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