Succession planning is not an issue that many organizations address in any systematic way. Organizations facing daily challenges ensure that thinking about who the next executive director might be or what would happen if the director of finance suddenly left is not high on their priority list.

There are many reasons why organizations need to be thinking about succession planning. The most important reason, of course, is that we rely on staff to carry out our missions, provide services and meet our organization’s goals. We need to think about what would happen to those services or our ability to fulfill our mission if a key staff member left.

Another reason to focus on succession planning is the changing realities of workplaces. The impending retirement of the baby boomers is expected to have a major impact on workforce capacity.

Today the number one issue facing a  large portion of the small and medium sized organizations is quality employees.

• Vacancies in senior or key positions are occurring in numerous organizations simultaneously and demographics indicate there are statistically fewer people available to fill them
• Baby boomer retirements are on the rise just at the time when the economy is growing and increasing the demand for senior management expertise
• There is no emerging group of potential employees on the horizon as in past generations (i.e. baby boomers, women entering the workforce, large waves of immigration)
• Many organizations eliminated middle manager positions during restructuring or survivable mode in during the banking crises of 2008 and worldwide recession this triggered.
• Younger managers interested in moving up do not have the skills and experience required because they have not been adequately mentored. This is because middle managers, who would normally perform this type of coaching role, were eliminated

With careful planning and preparation, organizations can manage the changes that result from a generational transfer of leadership as well as the ongoing changes that occur regularly when key employees leave an organization.

Although the type and extent of planning will be different, organizations both large and small need to have some sort of succession plan. Effective succession planning supports organizational stability and sustainability by ensuring there is an established process to meet staffing requirements. Boards and executive directors can demonstrate leadership by having the strategies and processes in place to ensure that these transitions occur smoothly, with little disruption to the organization.

So to help you begin to put a succession plan into place we have broken this into 5 Key Steps to building a