Succession planning is often the key to a company's long term success. With succession planning, business owners will find that they are able to work with the leaders in their company, to hire those prospects that will be a great fit for the company and who will be able to learn, grow and be a part of the business over the long term. When mentoring is a part of your company's succession planning strategy, you will find that it is possible to create contentedness within the work place, a high level of job satisfaction and a high level of employee retention.



Mentoring is the key to creating a strong leadership succession plan on many levels because it addresses all of the following points:

1. Mentoring helps to bring the right staff on board and to bring them up to speed quickly. On some levels, this is because leaders work as a group and create a team; on others, mentoring simply helps to ensure that those who become a part of the company learn and understand their position quickly and that they will be able to know that they can advance as they are ready to do so.

2. Mentoring ensures that employees are more satisfied with their positions. Simply put, those who are involved in a mentoring program in the workplace understand what they are doing and feel good about doing it; this leads to high levels of employee retention.

3. Mentoring ensures greater levels of productivity and higher quality work. Because members of your staff will be comfortable with the position that they are filling and because they will have easy access to those who can answer questions when they have them, fewer errors will be made and work will be completed on a timely basis.

4. Mentoring ensures that you staff will have increased motivation. When a company's employees know that they are able to do the job well and that there is room for growth, they commit to the position and to growth within the company. When employees understand that there is potential for career growth, they will be more committed to the company, more likely to set goals and willing to help others succeed.

With a mentoring program as a part of your leadership succession strategy, you will find that your business will be positioned to have a team in place – a team in which the staff members work together, give their best and recognize that, as time goes on, they will be able to grow into leadership roles.

Mentoring a succession planning, therefore, allow companies to structure their business for success. Rather than looking into hiring staff at some point down the road to fill leadership positions, businesses with mentoring programs will know that they are able to promote from within which will ensure consistency of policies. Rather than worrying about potential conflicts that could lead to performance issues, with mentoring in place all members of the staff are in a position to reach out to and learn from one another.

Copyright 2008, Cecile Peterkin. All rights reserved.