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Succession Planning

Succession Planning: Function selection

The Succession Planning feature is available under the Views tab.

Check Succession Planning. 

The Succession Planning pane will appear, with a button to prepare the chart for this process.

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In your chart, add the Hire Status field to all boxes. (This step is for illustration purposes.)

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Succession Planning: Leaving/successors

In the Succession Planning pane there are two windows: one for Leaving Persons, and one for their Successors or replacements.

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Select a person in the chart and double-click on the Hire Status.  Select the “Leaving” option in the dropdown list.  

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You will see the box automatically move to the Leaving Persons window. 

Succession Planning: Alternate options

As an alternative to changing the Hire Status, you can simply drag the Leaving Person box to the Leaving Persons window.  As you do so the Hire Status will automatically be changed to leaving.

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Click and drag

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The result. Notice that the Hire Status changes to “Leaving.”

Add other people who will be leaving.

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Succession Planning: Associate successor

Next, to associate a Successor with the Leaving Person, click on the person who is leaving in the Leaving Persons window.  Then drag one or more people who are ‘candidates’ (Successors) to replace a Leaving Person. For example, select Vicki in the Leaving Persons window.  Then drag Denise and Jae from the chart to the Successors window.  

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Keep in mind that Successors can come from the chart, or they can come from the Staging Area.  Positions can be imported from a separate file into the Staging Area for this purpose.

With each Successor dragged into the Successors window, you will see the box for the Leaving Person become populated with the Successor’s name and title.

To replace the Leaving Person with a successor, select the desired successor in the Successors window.  Then click on the Select button.

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A green checkmark appears to indicate the desired replacement.

Finally, select Vicki, and click on the Apply button, choosing the “Move favorite person to the new position” option.

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Succession Planning: Results

Denise is moved into the Vicki’s old position.

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Denise gets moved into the new position, and Vicki’s box is no longer on the chart.

Succession Planning: Staging

Actually, Vicki is now in the Staging Area pane.

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Keep in mind this chart has been manually manipulated to create a plan of succession.  If the Resync function is used it will restore the chart to its original state.

Succession Planning: Reporting

Given this staging of people leaving and their potential replacements…

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Here is a sample report showing people leaving and those noted as potential or designated successors (marked with *).

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Succession Planning: Managing process

People come and people go.  Managing the continuous process of replacing people in your organization – for whatever reason; separation, termination, promotion… all of these scenarios can be handled by OrgChart Platinum.

For our first example there are three people in the organization reporting to the group manager.

There is an active field used in the succession planning process called “Hire Status”.  The values are Employee, Leaving, Open position Candidate and Decline.  Double clicking on the Hire Status will show the choices:

Succession Planning: Example #2

There is a Succession Planning pane, which can be activated from the View Tab.

The Succession Planning process works with people who are leaving, and people who are candidates for succession (Successors).

Succession Planning: Changing hire status

Double-click on the Hire Status, changing it to Leaving.

As soon as the Hire Status is changed to leaving the box appears in the Succession Planning window, as a Leaving Person.

Succession Planning: Staging

Since Kerry is leaving, we need to find a replacement for her.  In this example we have a couple people that were imported into the Staging Area.  Let’s make this pane visible.

Next, we can take a person from the Staging Area to be a potential replacement for Kerry. Just click on the person in the Staging Area and drag to the Successors area in the Succession Planning pane.

You may establish multiple people as potential successors in the Successor area.  But only one person can eventually become a replacement.

Succession Planning: Replacement

Finally, to replace a leaving person, 1., Click on the leaving person, 2., click on the successor person, 3., click on Select (you will see a star indicator, indicating this successor will replace the leaving person), 4., click on Apply to move the successor into the box of the leaving person.

Succession Planning: Results

The result of this operation shows the chart box with the new person, and the Hire Status reads, Candidate..

Also note that the Leaving Person gets moved to the Staging Area.

Updated on January 17, 2023

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