Introduction 

As companies grow, they often face the challenge of identifying future leaders and preparing them for critical roles. This is where SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development becomes an invaluable solution. 

The Challenge: 

• How do you ensure leadership continuity when key leaders retire or move on? 
• How do you identify and develop future leaders while balancing the career development needs of all employees? 
• How can organizations close talent gaps and plan for long-term success? 

Without the right tools, organizations risk losing high-potential talent and falling behind their competitors. The inability to identify future leaders can lead to internal disruption and missed opportunities for growth. 

SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development provides a powerful, integrated solution to these challenges. It enables organizations to identify, develop, and retain the right people, building a robust talent pipeline that ensures leadership continuity and supports employee growth. This strategic approach empowers businesses to prepare for both present and future leadership needs while ensuring minimal disruption to operations. 

In this blog, we will explore the key features of SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development and how it helps organizations close talent gaps, nurture leadership potential, and streamline employee development efforts, ensuring sustainable success for the future. 

Key Features of SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development 

• Succession Planning Org Chart

This solution offers a dynamic succession planning org chart, which provides organizations with clear visibility into leadership gaps. This feature allows HR teams and business leaders to identify potential risks in leadership continuity, such as employees at risk of leaving or positions that may be vulnerable if not properly managed. The org chart also highlights key metrics like the risk of loss and bench strength, helping organizations make informed decisions about future leadership roles.

This visibility enables organizations to plan for transitions effectively, ensuring that when leadership changes occur, there is minimal disruption to operations. By identifying gaps early, businesses can focus their development efforts on preparing successors for critical roles. 

• Talent Search and Hidden Talent Discovery

The talent search capability of SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development stands out as one of its most powerful features. This feature enables firms to conduct thorough searches throughout the whole company, utilizing employee skill profiles to discover untapped talent. Frequently, high-potential employees may not be easily noticeable, particularly in larger organizations. SAP SuccessFactors facilitates the identification of these individuals, simplifying the process of placing the correct individuals in suitable positions. 

The talent search functionality also enables filtering by different characteristics like abilities, expertise, and achievement measurements. This helps HR teams in identifying and developing high-potential employees for leadership roles, resulting in a more diverse and skilled talent pool. 

• Talent Pools for Future Readiness

This solution provides talent pools as a way to systematically manage and cultivate high-potential employees. Talent pools refer to clusters of employees who have been identified for possible future leadership positions or key roles in the company. These pools enable HR and management to track the progress of these employees and ensure they are moving towards being ready for higher responsibilities.

Talent pools ease the process for organizations to swiftly fill leadership vacancies with a readily available group of well-prepared and qualified candidates. By actively managing talent in this manner, companies can become more flexible in dealing with changes within the organization or unexpected leadership departures. 

• Employee and Career Development Planning

One of the key elements of SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development is its focus on employee career development. This platform enables employees to seize control of their own career development. The tool assists employees in aligning personal career goals with organization’s needs by creating career development plans. These plans highlight deficiencies in skills and abilities, giving workers clear roadmaps for reaching their career goals.

Additionally,  the continuous development feature ensures employees receive constant coaching and feedback to keep them engaged in appropriate development tasks. This function assists in both keeping employees and grooming them for future leadership positions, ensuring a continuous flow of talent in the organization. 

• Mentoring and Career Explorer Tools

Mentorship is a key part of developing future leaders, and this solution simplifies the mentoring process through automated mentor-matching. The system connects mentors and mentees according to their skills, experience, and development requirements, promoting effective relationships that expedite employee development. Mentorship supports employees in acquiring the advice and expertise necessary to thrive in advanced positions.

Furthermore, the Career Explorer tool utilizes machine learning technology to provide customized career path suggestions for workers. Career Explorer offers employees an understanding of potential advancement within the company by studying the career paths of individuals with similar skills and abilities. This method utilizing data ensures employees are continuously informed of the positions that align with their skills and interests. 

• Talent Reviews and Calibration Tool

To ensure objective assessments of employee performance and potential, this solution includes talent calibration tools. The nine-box grid is one such tool that allows organizations to plot employees based on their performance and potential. This dynamic, drag-and-drop interface simplifies the process of identifying top performers and those who need further development.

Another important feature is the photo-less calibration tool, which helps reduce unconscious bias in the performance-review process. By removing employee photos from the calibration view, companies can focus solely on performance data and competencies, leading to fairer, more objective assessments. This ensures that the best candidates are identified for succession plans, regardless of background or visual bias. 

• Comprehensive Analytics and Reporting

The success of any succession plan or leadership development strategy relies heavily on data-driven decisions. This solution offers strong analytics and reporting tools to provide organizations with insights on the success of their talent management efforts. These analytics assist companies in evaluating the influence of succession planning on important business results, like employee retention, engagement, and leadership readiness.

Through these insights, companies can consistently improve their procedures, guaranteeing they are consistently progressing towards fulfilling their upcoming workforce requirements. The analytics also give insight into how individual employees are progressing within talent pools, making it simpler to identify areas requiring additional growth. 

• Performance-Potential Matrix and Instant Nomination

This platform provides the performance-potential matrix, which categorizes workers according to their performance level and leadership potential. This matrix visually aids HR teams and managers in quickly identifying high-potential employees suitable for leadership positions. It streamlines the process of succession planning by clearly identifying top achievers and individuals in need of further development.

The instant nomination feature on the platform enables HR teams to quickly select potential successors for important positions. This flexibility guarantees that businesses can adapt quickly to unexpected shifts in leadership or organizational setup, preventing any disruptions in operations. 

Strategic Approach of SuccessFactors Succession and Development

 There are three unique aspects about SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development solution which helps organization to effectively develop talent, career planning and succession planning. 

• Modern approach

SAP SuccessFactors succession and Development solution eliminates all the complex manual methods involved in identifying the talent gaps.  Through this it provides a simple and modern solution to conduct comprehensive talent searches in the organization. Hence it builds talent pipelines across all areas of the organization with its modern approach. 

• Engaging Plans

SAP SuccessFactors succession and development fills the needs of the organization while balancing the career interest of the employees. In addition to that, it also conducts an employee career workshop to make intelligent recommendations on suggested roles to the employee and keep them more engaged. SAP SuccessFactors new mentor abilities match the perfect mentor to the employee to improve their development and growth. By empowering the employees and focusing on developing employee potential, SAP SuccessFactors increases the overall employee engagement in the organization. 

• Dynamic Solution

SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development gives a dynamic solution to enhance talent visibility through analytics. This provides organizations with the insights to prepare for their future. The interactive presentation features of SAP SuccessFactors allow organizations to get live talent information for their talent reviews. This real-time talent information supports strategic talent conversations for a better decision-making process. 

Thus, SAP SuccessFactors builds a strategic plan for their organization by automating the entire succession planning. Also, this automated succession planning is integrated with the three above mentioned aspects and SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite. 

Conclusion

SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development is a comprehensive solution that empowers organizations to build a strong, future-ready workforce. By leveraging features like the succession planning org chart, talent search, talent pools, employee development plans, and powerful analytics, businesses can create a strategic approach to leadership development and succession planning. The platform ensures that high-potential employees are identified, developed, and ready to step into critical roles, ensuring leadership continuity and business success. 

To learn more about how SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development can transform your organization’s succession planning and employee development efforts, get in touch with us! 

 

 

FAQ’s 

1. What is SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development? 

SAP SuccessFactors Succession and Development is designed to help organizations identify, develop, and retain talent, ensuring leadership continuity. The platform supports succession planning, employee career development, and leadership growth by offering tools like talent searches, succession planning org charts, and analytics to streamline leadership development efforts. 

2. How does SuccessFactors Succession and Development help in identifying future leaders? 

The platform provides advanced features like Talent Search and Performance-Potential Matrix, which help HR teams discover hidden talent, assess employees’ leadership potential, and create talent pools for future leadership roles. The Succession Planning Org Chart further aids in identifying leadership gaps and planning for smooth transitions.

3. How does SAP SuccessFactors address employee development? 

SAP SuccessFactors empowers employees to take control of their own career development through features like Career Development Plans and Mentoring tools. These features provide employees with a roadmap to achieve their goals and continuous feedback, ensuring they stay engaged and are prepared for leadership roles.

4. How does this solution support talent retention? 

By offering comprehensive tools for employee development, such as career path planning, mentoring, and continuous feedback, SAP SuccessFactors helps employees stay engaged and motivated. The platform aligns individual career goals with organizational needs, which fosters a sense of growth and belonging, ultimately improving talent retention and reducing turnover.