Submitted to: Dr Shakeel

Submitted by: Fatima Iqbal

CIIT/FA17-RMS-OO7/ATK
BENCH STRENTHG

Bench strength is defined as a backup of employees who are ready to fill the vacant
place in case of another employee leave the organization. This is mostly use in top
positions, because here you need a person who run the organization if existing
leader leave the organization.
Bench strength is a part of succession planning, whereas succession planning
and leadership development comes under the umbrella of talent management.
Furthermore Succession planning, bench strength and talent management comes
under the responsibility of human resource manager (Hand field-Jones et al 2007).

In addition to, succession planning is defined as right people at the right time
at the right place (Henderson, 2005).Purpose of succession planning is to place
right people at the right place for every position in the organization but placing
right people at top level manager is more important because they are the decision
maker and policy maker and they drive companies to skies or to the failure (Levine
& crom, 1993).

Now a days succession planning is becoming an important factor for

organizational growth ,it’s an obvious thing to make a backup plan for every act or
people in the organization talented people of organization fill this key position and
before that they got a training(Department of management and administrative
services, 2010).

Carnegie D. (2009) suggests that succession planning is a new trend to ensure that
employees of organization have much capable for training and then gain strategic
roles in organization.
As well as , Organization which have not succession planning, face a
number of issue like key positions vacant for long time, hire an external employees
for that position, always risk of employees turnover ,these are the problem
organization face due to lack of formal planning Roth well (2005).

Moreover using succession planning have some benefits, these are by doing
succession planning a contingency plan is prepared & keep the organization well
prepared for sudden loss of an employee .for example a person got a serious
accident, or a person switch his job so in case a backup is essential .another benefit
is, manager get a way to identify the skills of their employee by giving stretch
assignment to the employees, they measure the competency of employee.
employees get a clear path for their future & then perform accordingly, employees
who know that their organization have a succession planning are tend to stay
longer with the organization ,they see their bright future in the organization,
internal employees have knowledge about the organization culture ,values,
working environment so cost of advertisement ,recruiting and training become
minimize. (OGUTU, 2016).
On the other hand there is also some challenges in implementing succession
planning ,now what they are, difficulty in identifying true success for the
organization ,organization don’t do performance appraisal to check the capability
of an employee to get a top position in the organization or replace by top position.
Another thing is lack of focus on what is important for the organization instead of
this they focus on current practices and problem & not giving importance to future
plans. Ensure that plans which organization makes ,employees follow it or not,
some organization just make plans in paper and don’t apply in practice which
cause a gap in organizational growth. Assessment standard should set for
measuring performance of employees and then take a capable employees for higher
post as a bench strength. Another drawback is no honest communication of
performance appraisal which cause biasness. Nepotism sees as a major drawback
of succession planning, managers are just trained their kin and not to other y
generation, impatience among y generation and dishonest among leader and
employees become a challenge for making or implementing a succession planning
(OGUTU, 2016).

Literature highlighted that, after globalization companies competing for a

talent, company who retained their talent will face success but retention is not
possible until and unless we don’t engage our employees (Lockwood, 2007).The
term talent management first introduced by (David Watkins, 1998).After that
different companies realized talented employees play an important role in success
of organization (teo, 2010). However Some organizations allocate more resources
on talent management rather than succession planning because succession planning
show slow effect but long lasting and in talent management organization depend
on others which is less time taking but consume more resources (pandey,sharma
,2014).organization need to create a talent pool where number of talented
employees get training ,take responsibilities, future directions for the organization
,low level managers fill place of mid-level managers after training in case of
vacant space in the organization(pandey,sharma ,2014).
Moreover there are three components of succession planning:

1. Emergency succession planning:

 In case of sudden vacant space in organization (illness, accident, and
deceased) organization appoint an employees at that position for a
temporary period (3, 4 months) as an acted manager .the responsibility of
acted manager is to implement the operation and continue of the processes.

2. Strategic leadership development:

It is an ongoing process in which organization identifies the skills,
knowledge and competencies required in organization in next five years so
top management seek whether to hire new recruits or by gaining
competencies of existing employees to meet the standards.

3. Departure defined transition planning:

It occurs when organization sees that an employee leaving the organization
in next few term (retirement) so board members call a meeting in which
they decide how to fill that space by hiring new employee or to promote
internal employee ,give training to them, or hire a consultant.

However ,Succession planning are not only done for forecasting vacant
space in the organization but also sees about what type of changes required
in the organization , new technology should introduce , wealth management
of the organization(Sebold ,2015).

In addition to, summary of case study describe us the value of

implementing succession planning in the organization, the case study is
about talent management at Telekom Malaysia berhad. The company is
forefront and dominant in previous some year but now due to globalization
and lots of talent introduce in the market they feel heat from the
competitor.to retain their talent they have to do something they use their
leaders as facilitator. The talent management process has 4 key stages:

Talent spotting
In talent spotting main focus is on employee’s performance ,to
measure the employees performance questioners are designed which
is 80% cornered about employees competency and 20 % about
employee behavior .competency show the attitude towards
organizational goal and how much an employee is capable of giving
 output to the organization.360degree feedback is also practiced in the
organization.
Talent assessment
They used a tool for assessing talent management named as
leadership potential inventory(LPI).in this tool a questioners are
designed in which individuals leadership quality is measured ,the LPI
is based on different dimensions like leadership promise in which
leader ensure to bring prosperity by bringing best talent in the
organization and also authentic. Another dimension is balance of
values and result. Try to make easy for employees to fit in culture.3rd
dimension is personal development orientation, receptivity to
feedback and eager to learn is focused. Last dimension is master of
flexibility.adaptibility, ability to navigate and conceptual thinking is
developed.
Formulation of individual development plan:
A company suggest to formulate a 70:20:10 model. An employee’s
learn 70% from new and challenging experience and by helping other
people.20% learn from social learning and 10% learn from structured
course and training program.
So the company is also focuses on training and on job rotation to gain
a talent.
Readiness level assessment
At this level employees who gain a highest points in upper given
dimension they are retained for future and gain a promotion for high
post the purpose of this talent management process you asses the
employees from very first day so in time of filling a job you have
your own talent you don’t need to outsource.at that time company has
370 managers in talent pool out of 20,000 employees (sumardi,
Othman 2011).

The secret of succession planning starts with the development of leadership:

Finding the right person for the job is the biggest challenge for organization now a
days. People are not born leader but they learn from experience and mentoring.
Succession planning is a road map for talent development in the organization.
Some suggestions for succession planning from expert are as follows:
 Start with strategy
You planned for launch of any product and services likewise you planned for
developing your people. Strategy making show us what type of competencies
are necessary for succession of organization so employees are trained
accordingly.
 Rights skills are key:
For examples every person didn’t perform every task .everyone has their own
expert area like a person is good in sales but not good in leadership so assigning
work to the relevant person is also important.

 Communicate Clearly

Open and ongoing dialogues bring success in the organization

 Encourage Healthy Competition

To test the skills and competencies of an employee a healthy competition is

organized .make sure competition is healthy not destructive.

 Be Prepared

Here a concept of bench strength is applied, a leader might have to leave the
organization for sudden reason so company should have a contingent
employee for that position (Brenda Bouw, Forbes).

As well as, Marshall Goldsmith says, by applying four practical ideas you gain
success in the organization:

 Change the term from succession planning to succession development

 Measure outcomes and less focus on process
 Keep it simple and realistic (Harvard Business Review, 2017)
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