Succession planning should be a must for any business.
What would you do if the CFO suddenly announced they were leaving with little notice?
How would your team cope if they could not turn to their trusted manager?
Would things fall apart if the office manager who has been around since the beginning decided to retire?
Everyone thinks about moving to a new role at some point in their careers, even if they appear incredibly fulfilled and settled to peers and colleagues. Studies show that 1 in 4 Americans have quit their jobs in the past two years, and 1 in 5 have considered quitting in 2025.
While employees might be looking to greener pastures and new opportunities, their coworkers and employers need to think about what will happen when they leave. Succession planning efforts will be key in helping ensure these critical positions will remain filled, and there will not be too long a transition period between one post holder and the next. Let’s explore some succession planning examples in further depth.
What is Succession Planning?
We’ve previously spoken about succession planning at length, so let’s just quickly summarize things here.
Succession plans are business processes that theoretically minimize the impact caused by employees in key positions leaving their roles. While we want workers to be happy in their roles for as long as possible, a succession plan is a realistic understanding that people can and do move on.
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They don’t even have to be created with the mindset that the employee at the heart of the plan will be leaving the organization. For instance, high-potential employees on a leadership track will eventually move upwards and leave a void behind them. Ideally, there will be internal talent ready to step into their interim roles; otherwise, HR might need to get recruiting. However, there is a clear and concrete plan in place so that anyone stepping into these future leadership roles feels adequately supported and prepared.
A formal succession planning strategy needs to play a key role in businesses of all sizes, and yet many neglect it. In fact, a 2021 survey of HR professionals found that only 21% of respondents came from an organization with a formal succession plan in place, with over a third (36%) saying there wasn’t a plan at all.
Why Succession Planning is For More Than Future Leaders
The succession planning process isn’t just for leadership transitions and developing high-potential candidates. Every business has crucial employees who help with the day-to-day running of the business. Subject matter experts and key administrators can hold knowledge that no one else in the organization does.
Just think about it: what happens if the IT manager decides to leave for a new role? Who will step into his shoes? Can the company afford to have an interim period with a knowledge gap? If you can’t confidently answer these questions, you need to ensure you have a succession plan in place.
What are the Best Practices for Succession Planning?
Like any business process, establishing best practices ensures that you are planning effectively. A smooth transition is best supported by clear and efficient processes.
1. Establish a structure for the plan
The first step will always be to create a basic structure or template to follow. Every succession plan is likely to be tied to the individual at the heart of it. But a starting template helps to create an outline and a series of criteria to help with assessments and forward planning. All critical knowledge will be captured, and weaknesses can be identified and mitigated before they cause real issues.
2. Bring senior leadership on board
Senior leaders need to be looped in on any and all succession planning. They may have ideas about potential successors for their own roles, and they may have an oversight of the strengths and weaknesses each individual employee brings to the company structure. Ultimately, they also need to grant authority to plans so they can easily progress when deployed.
3. Identify key positions and skills
With leader buy-in, the next step is to identify the key positions and skills that are critical to the success and health of your organization. Make sure to look across multiple departments and focus on more than leadership skills and roles. The roles that support the company’s bottom line are important, but you also need to include those concerned with operational efficiency and strategy. Even those concerned purely with internal harmony can prove to be critical roles.
4. Assess internal talent
How does your internal talent currently shape up? Successful succession planning arises when there is a good pool of talent already within the company. Bring in someone from outside, and they may discover they aren’t a good fit with your company culture. High turnover can make succession planning a nightmare! Internal talent is, hopefully, already committed to the company and is more open to conversations about future and leadership development. Engaging with the 9 Box Grid rubric could help you to identify key players who might one day be the perfect potential successors to key figures in your organization.
5. Invest in development
Development plans need to form the foundation of any conversation around succession. Experienced leaders don’t spring from nowhere; they spend years gathering proficiencies and managing events to give themselves a toolkit to pull from. Developing future leaders can take so many forms. It doesn’t all have to be courses and away days, too; mentorship programs can connect potential successors with the right leaders for them to learn from.
6. Have a backup plan
Sometimes things may not go as planned. Even with effective succession planning in place, someone might decide they want to leave suddenly. An accident or injury could put someone out of work for months. The company could require restructuring. Succession plans are important, but they should only form one part of good business continuity practices.
7 Succession Planning Examples
So, now that we have established what succession planning is in a little more depth, what are some examples of how it plays out?
Let’s dig into a few hypothetical scenarios so you can see the true value of succession planning and just how varied it can be in practice.
1. Retirement
Rob has been the Chief Financial Officer at a tech company since it was just an idea being run out of the founder’s spare bedroom. Now, many years later, he is preparing to retire. After careful consideration, he thinks one of the VPs of Finance, Annie, is the right fit to be his successor.
He approaches both HR and Annie to create the succession plan. They all agree that he will formally mentor Annie, with her shadowing him for meetings, events, and day-to-day activities so she fully understands the role. She will also embark on a short set of learning and development programs to add to her skillset and give her more confidence in the role.
By the time Rob’s retirement comes around, Annie is more than prepared to step into the role and has even taken some of his responsibilities into her workload already. Rob can retire, knowing Annie is more than ready to become the CFO.
2. Unexpected leadership departure
Maria, the Head of Customer Success, is widely respected for her ability to calm escalations, build long-term client relationships, and keep churn consistently low. She has no plans to leave—until a sudden family emergency requires her to step away from work indefinitely with almost no notice. Because the company has an emergency succession plan in place, the COO and HR immediately activate the pre-defined process.
They select Dan, a senior Customer Success Manager who had already been identified as a high-potential successor. While he wasn’t expecting to step up so soon, the preparation pays off: Dan has previously taken part in leadership shadowing sessions, completed a coaching program, and been gradually entrusted with two major enterprise clients.
HR rolls out a rapid 30-day support plan, including temporary admin assistance, weekly check-ins, and escalation guidelines. Even though the situation is unplanned and emotionally difficult for the team, the department experiences minimal disruption, proving the value of having an emergency successor ready, even when no one expects it.
3. No internal successor available
Dr. Mina Zhao, the Director of Data Science at GreenField Analytics, announces she will be leaving to move into academia. When HR and the CEO review the current team, they realize no one has the technical and strategic experience needed to take over her role.
To avoid a knowledge gap, Dr. Zhao begins documenting her processes and running training sessions for senior analysts. Meanwhile, HR starts an external search for a qualified successor who can take over leadership of the function.
By the time Dr. Zhao leaves, the team is confident managing day-to-day tasks, and the company has hired an experienced data science leader to step into her role without disruption.
4. Promotion
Taylor, a top-performing sales executive, has just been promoted to a regional sales manager role. While the promotion is well deserved, their departure leaves several high-value accounts without a primary contact.
To avoid any service gaps, the Sales Director and HR create a succession plan for Taylor’s book of business. They identify Maya, a rising sales associate who consistently exceeds targets and builds strong relationships. For several weeks, Taylor loops her into client calls, hands over account histories, and coaches her through negotiation tactics and renewal strategies.
By the time Taylor fully transitions to the manager role, Maya has already established herself with the clients and is well prepared to maintain, and even further grow, the relationships.
5. Extended medical leave
Jacob, a warehouse supervisor, has been a cornerstone of the operations team for years. He manages shift schedules, oversees stock rotation, and keeps the warehouse running smoothly. When he informs management that he will need several months of medical leave, they know they must plan ahead.
Operations leaders decide that Liam, a senior warehouse associate with natural leadership skills, is the right person to step up. Jacob spends the next few weeks showing Liam how he handles compliance checks, reporting, and escalation issues. The company also arranges a short leadership training program to help Liam feel confident managing the team.
When Jacob goes on leave, Liam is ready. Productivity remains steady, and the warehouse team appreciates the continuity.
6. Management gap
Holly, the marketing team lead, announces she has accepted a role at another agency. She owns several important campaigns and plays a big part in strategy discussions, so her departure calls for a swift but thoughtful succession plan.
The Marketing Director and HR partner work to identify a successor. They choose Carlos, a marketing executive with strong creative instincts and impressive campaign results. Holly begins transitioning her workload, bringing Carlos into planning meetings, reviewing campaign metrics with them, and sharing the frameworks she uses for proposals and briefs. The company also invests in a short management program to prepare them for leading the team.
By the time Holly leaves, Carlos already feels embedded in the role, and the team experiences a smooth handoff.
7. Maternity leave
Emma, a well-respected HR business partner, supports several departments through performance cycles, employee relations, and organizational planning. When she shares the news of her upcoming maternity leave, HR leadership begins mapping out a succession plan to maintain continuity.
They select Amina, a senior HR advisor who has worked closely with Emma for years. Over the next couple of months, Emma gradually hands over cases, invites Amina to leadership meetings she normally attends alone, and helps her understand the nuances of each team she supports. HR also provides coaching and resources so Amina feels equipped for the expanded responsibilities.
By the time Emma begins her leave, Amina has already built rapport with the managers she’ll support and is confidently stepping into the role.
Bring Your Succession Planning to Life With Mentoring
Succession planning teams with other aspects of career mapping to give employees full control over what they want to do with their careers, both in your organization and beyond it. Creating these plans is one thing; putting them into practice is another. If you want to fill key roles with internal promotions, you need platforms to help people gain confidence and knowledge.
Mentoring is one of the best ways to do so, and it forms a key part of many top companies. 98% of US Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs, and we bet they engage in some pretty solid succession planning too.
Mentoring doesn’t have to be difficult. MentorcliQ’s mentoring platform makes creating and managing matches easy, to create lasting partnerships between mentor and mentee and alleviate the burden on program administrators.
Book a demo today and find out how our approach to mentoring can breathe life into your succession plans.
