It's crucial to find and hire entry-level staff who have the potential to move up the ranks of the company, writes Margaret Harris

Succession planning is vital if organisations are to sustain their current business models and be innovative in these unpredictable times.

Despite their hard work, however, many companies still end up needing to find outside talent to fill senior positions.

Shelley Ball, the managing director for Gauteng and Durban at Communicate Personnel, says the heady rate of change is one of the biggest challenges.

"Circumstances change more than anticipated and whatever talent was previously identified is no longer adequate. It is a part of human nature to always try to chart the future by looking in the rear-view mirror."

Sean Hettema, the human resources director at Nando's, says, though recent research has found that almost 60% of executives say they are not cultivating enough talent, he would argue that the figure is much higher.

"Effective succession management is the result of cultivating the talent to populate a succession plan that works when actually applied. For this reason, it is essential that the effort is invested in cultivating talent and not merely in populating plans. The plans will be weak if the actual cultivation or growth of talented people is not strong."

He says that organisations need to make an effort to actively "cultivate" talent to ensure that future talent gaps are avoided.

"In most organisations the immediate talent requirements cannot be adequately met from within. This creates a time demand operationally on line managers and the human resources teams supporting them to constantly be focused on external recruitment, which can be very time consuming. In addition, external placements require intensive induction and training for their new organisation and take time to become productive."

However, Ball says recruiters offer more flexibility and can, therefore, help organisations when they are pressed for time.

"In times of rapid corporate change, perhaps it is time that recruiters were placed in a relationship more central to the succession planning process rather than on the margins. Most organisations leave recruiters entirely out of the succession planning process, bringing them in only at the last moment to fill urgent positions."

She says recruiters can help in the succession planning process in three ways:

• First, they should provide a competitive analysis of the labour market;
• Secondly, they should contribute to the overall talent plan and projections on a variety of possible staffing scenarios; and
• Thirdly, they should create and maintain flexible talent pools.

Whether they use a recruitment firm or not, Hettema believes that poor succession planning shows that the leadership has failed.

"In a typical organisation, the cultivation period to grow talent to a first-line supervisory or specialist levelis roughly three to five years, depending on the sector and excluding any prior formal qualifications required. So the failure to have readily available internal talent to meet current requirements is a failure of the leadership of the organisation to have identified talent with the potential to cultivate and to cultivate or prepare this talent for future requirements."

He says leaders then find themselves with limited staff so they are even less likely to begin the cultivation process. "In this way the vicious cycle is perpetuated," he says.

Another concern is that the morale of employees can be affected when outside appointments are made.

He advocates finding and hiring entry-level staff who have the potential to move up the ranks of the organisation.

"For example, at Nando's, effective restaurant managers are a key talent pool that we would like to grow more from our own people. In looking at our pipeline, we now aim to hire grillers, cashiers, cleaners and waiters with management potential.

"Previously, we hired a cleaner who could clean. The more the business hires for the higher level potential, the greater the supply of raw material to cultivate for future management requirements."