Succession Planning and Talent Retention
Most organisations discover their succession gap on the day a resignation letter arrives from someone who cannot be replaced in ninety days. This one-day programme is built to happen before that. Participants identify their critical roles and key-person risks, run a talent review that produces honest ratings rather than flattering ones, build development plans for named successors, and work out which retention levers matter for the people they most want to keep. The output is a filled-in succession map for their own department, not a framework to implement later.
The two days are structured as a working session rather than a lecture. Participants map their own critical roles, run a talent review against real people, build development plans for identified successors, and leave with a retention risk register for their own team.
HRD Corp SBL-Khas Claimable
Programme Agenda
Day 1, 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Welcome and Programme Overview
Introduction to the session, objectives, and housekeeping.
Day 1, 9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
Critical Roles and Key-Person Risk
Identifying the roles where a departure causes disproportionate damage, which are often not the most senior ones. Scoring roles on impact and replaceability, and finding the undocumented knowledge that sits in one person's head.
Day 1, 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Break
Day 1, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Talent Review Without the Politics
Running a nine-box review on performance and potential, defining potential in observable terms, and the traps: rewarding loyalty as potential, confusing current performance with future capability, and letting the loudest manager set the ratings.
Day 1, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
Day 1, 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Building the Pipeline
Ready now, ready in one to two years, ready later. Naming successors per critical role, identifying roles with no viable internal successor, and deciding honestly where you will have to hire externally instead of pretending a pipeline exists.
Day 1, 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM
Break
Day 1, 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Development Plans That Actually Develop
Stretch assignments, acting roles, project leadership, cross-functional exposure and structured mentoring. Why classroom training alone rarely closes a readiness gap, and how to fund development that competes with day-job pressure.
Day 1, 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Day 1 Close
Recap and what to review before day two.
Day 2, 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Day 1 Review
Recap of day one and the questions it left open.
Day 2, 9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
What Really Drives Retention
Why exit interviews systematically underreport the real reason. Manager quality, career visibility, workload, recognition and pay, and how to find out which of these is biting in your organisation using stay interviews and attrition data.
Day 2, 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Break
Day 2, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Retention Levers You Can Actually Pull
Building targeted retention plans for high-risk, high-impact people. Career conversations that do not promise what you cannot deliver, internal mobility, counter-offer policy, and the retention interventions that reliably backfire.
Day 2, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
Day 2, 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Knowledge Transfer and Handover
Capturing process knowledge, relationships and judgement before someone leaves. Documentation that gets used, shadowing and overlap periods, and running a handover on a short notice period.
Day 2, 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM
Break
Day 2, 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Workshop: Your Succession Map
Participants complete a critical role register, a nine-box placement for their own team, named successors with readiness levels and gaps, and a retention action list for their highest-risk people. Peer review and facilitator challenge on the gaps left blank.
Day 2, 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Wrap-Up and Q&A
Key takeaways, next steps, and close.
Key Outcomes
- Identify critical roles and quantify key-person risk in your area
- Run a nine-box talent review that produces honest ratings
- Name successors per critical role with an assessed readiness level
- Build development plans that close readiness gaps through real work
- Find the actual retention drivers behind your attrition numbers
- Design targeted retention plans for high-risk, high-impact people
- Run a knowledge transfer and handover before capability walks out
Training Mode Physical / Online / Hybrid / e-learning
HRD Corp SBL-Khas Claimable
Level Intermediate. Suitable for HR managers and business partners, department heads and senior leadership involved in talent decisions.
Duration 2 Days (16 Hours) | 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM daily
Venue In-house at the client's premises, or delivered via the client's preferred platform (Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or equivalent)
Assessment A critical role map, a completed talent review grid and a retention risk register for the participant's own organisation
Certificate Certificate of Completion issued to all participants upon full attendance