Free Report About Advantages And Disadvantages Of Succession Planning

Human Resource (HR) department is an integral part of any successful organization’s operational management. They look after the recruitment, transfers, placement and deal with general grievances of the employees as well. It supports other departments in a variety of manners like helping and ensuring effective delivery of services/products to the customers/public. It is also involved in policy making role and implementing these policies at the organizational level. Saint John’s city Hall HR department is providing such services to the district administration in their day to day activities of public dealing and management. Currently the department is facing numerous problems. Some of these problems are long term while others are short term in nature.
There are 10 working people involved in the HR department. The total number of staff in the City Hall is close to 650 so there is a ratio of 65:1. It means that the department has to take care of 65 times more population and thus it is short-staffed. The variety of staff is also very astonishing as we have to take care of firefighters, sanitary workers, health officials and administrative personnel and many more. What we are in need of is that we need a long term plan of action to eradicate the inefficiencies. One of these plans could succession planning.
Succession planning is that instead of hiring new people from outside, the personnel problem is solved by training and grooming the available staff. It includes identification of the personnel with that kind of potential and then deliberating on how best to train them. It increases the number of capable personnel and looks after the interests of the organization in the long term. It can also be called replacement planning as we are constantly training people to take greater roles eventually.
Succession planning has its advantages and flaws. One hand it ensures that the organizational problems are eliminated from within while on the other hand, it may lead to erroneous conclusions if the organization is not ready to adapt such an extensive employee development program. The main advantages faced by Saint John’s department will be:

Main areas of strength and weaknesses will be identified

Strategic Human Resources plan will be implemented instead of doing things on impulse
Will help evaluate and reward performance of different employees.
Provide sense of direction and much needed stability
Help retain critically important employee
The main disadvantages associated will be:
Succession planning might not be the best idea in a governmental working environment.
Appointing the wrong person for the job may lead to disastrous results. The identification and grooming of right person is paramount to success.
The HR department needs to be upgraded with specialized staff and set of rules if it s to undergo successional planning based results.
The organization has very traditional roots and to implement a dynamic plan such as this may lead to imbalance and promotion of favoritism

The cultural change in the HR department might be a lot overwhelming for the employees.

The resources needed for hiring, identifying and training the staff are not available at the moment
So all in all, succession planning is not a very good idea in the current scenario of the department.

References

JACOBY's Business Growth Consultant,. (2009). Advantages and Disadvantages of Succession Planning - JACOBY's Business Growth Consultant. Retrieved 9 April 2015, from http://www.businessgrowthconsultant.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-succession-planning/
Miles, S. (2009). Succession Planning: How To Do It Right. Forbes. Retrieved 9 April 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/31/succession-planning-right-leadership-governance-ceos.html
Nemethy, L. (2011). Business exit planning. Hoboken (N.J.): John Wiley & Sons.
Saintjohn.ca,. City of Saint John. Retrieved 9 April 2015, from http://www.saintjohn.ca/en/home/default.aspx
Workforce.com,. (2015). Succession Planning Roadmap. Retrieved 9 April 2015, from http://www.workforce.com/articles/succession-planning-roadmap
Www2.gnb.ca,. Succession Planning - A 5 Step Process. Retrieved 9 April 2015, from http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/human_resources/career_development/content/succession_planning/five_step_process.html