As many as 20 percent of the senior leaders in the Fortune 500 companies and 43 percent of the people who own and operate the closely-held businesses that comprise 80 percent of the North American economy could retire within the next five years. Succession planning is finding and grooming the people who can effectively replace them. This challenge may not be so easy. An aging population has reduced the candidate pool. Rapidly changing technology makes it hard to predict what it will take to manage organizations in the future. Changing attitudes toward company loyalty are making employee retention increasingly difficult. All of these factors will make effective succession planning and management crucial to the long-term success of today’s organizations. An organization's performance is directly tied to leadership effectiveness and its ability to guide and motivate its people. Succession planning varies widely among organizations, often encompassing some or all of the following goals: Development and replacement of key leaders Clarification of key positions and the criteria required to fulfill them Generation of a talent pipeline to fill key positions Specification of leaders' strengths and experiences to accelerate leadership growth of individuals and a total talent pool Provision of learning and development experiences to accelerate leadership growth of individuals and a value proposition to motivate and retain key talent to support the business strategies Generation of a program to manage the leadership talent pool most efficiently (including who to retain; who to release; how to streamline structures and processes, etc.) To support talent pipeline for in key positions, PeopleWorks helps organizations implement a systematic approach and process for succession planning. Our methodology focuses on identifying specific leadership development strategies, developing a succession plan and often linking the process to career planning, performance management, learning and development, and rewards. We most often help organizations through the following steps: Identify leadership criteria and competencies for current and future requirements Implement a leadership assessment and development process Design a plan for the development of your future leaders Create a measurement and evaluation system based on organization culture and business strategy Align reward and retention strategies to recognize high potential and top performing employees Automate the process In our experience, significant competitive advantage can be attained with an organized approach to succession planning, including: Retaining key performers Developing deep "bench strength" Identifying and helping high potential individuals to reach their potential Increasing the pool of promotable employees.