Succession planning is easy to put off. There is always something more urgent to deal with, especially when you’re running an engineering or manufacturing business.
But people retire, change jobs and move into different roles. Some absences are planned; others aren’t. The question is simple: if a key person wasn’t here, what would the business struggle to do?
That is where I would start. Not with a complicated document or a list of senior job titles, but with the work, skills and knowledge your business depends on.
Look beyond the management team
When I speak with business leaders, the focus often shifts to senior roles first. Those roles matter, but they are not the whole picture. Look at the people who keep production moving, hold specialist technical knowledge, support your customers or understand the details of a particular product.
Sales, account management, procurement, health and safety, accounts and credit control belong in that conversation too. Break it down by department and ask where the business is relying too heavily on one person.
An old manager said to me once, “Make yourself redundant as a leader.” He meant putting enough processes and plans in place for the team to manage without everything coming back to you. That is a useful way to think about succession planning: share the knowledge, build capability and reduce the dependency.
Identify the gaps before they become vacancies
For each critical role, ask what would happen if the person left. What would stop? Who could provide cover? What knowledge would go with them? How long would it take someone else to learn the work?
Then separate short-term cover from a longer-term successor. Someone who can keep things moving for a week may not yet be ready to take on the whole role. That doesn’t make them the wrong person to develop. It tells you what the development needs to cover.
Don’t assume a specialist role will be easy to recruit for when the time comes. If you know you may need to recruit externally, start defining the role and talking about the likely search before it becomes an emergency.
Talk to people about where they want to go
Look at your internal talent, but speak to people rather than simply writing their names against future jobs. What do they want to learn? Do they want more responsibility? Do they want to develop as a specialist rather than move into management?
Career development doesn’t have to be a straight line upwards. I’ve come across companies that move people into different roles with a parachute: support to try something new, and another route if it doesn’t work out. Good people are hard to replace. It is worth looking at what else they could do within the business.
Be clear about the support and expectations. A development conversation should not become a promise of a job you cannot guarantee.
Give training and knowledge transfer a proper place
Training and mentoring need time as well as good intentions. Identify the technical skills, experience and knowledge that need to be passed on, who can help, and what support they need to do it.
That might mean technical training, supervised work in another area or time alongside someone with specialist knowledge. Document the processes that matter, but also give people the chance to practise. A written procedure on its own doesn’t tell you whether someone is ready.
Keep the plan realistic for the people doing the training as well as the people learning. They still have their day jobs to do.
Write down a plan you can actually use
Keep it practical. For each critical role, record the following:
- The work, skills and knowledge at risk.
- Who could provide immediate cover, and what the limits are.
- Potential longer-term successors, following a conversation with them.
- Training and experience needed, with an owner and review date.
- Any recruitment gap that cannot be filled internally.
Review it when people, roles or business priorities change. The point is to keep the conversation moving, not to finish a document and forget about it.
If the planning exposes a recruitment gap, my Employer Recruitment Pack includes a role clarity checklist and vacancy planning sheet. They can help you turn “we’ll need someone” into a clearer brief.
Start before it feels urgent
You won’t remove every risk, and you won’t fill every gap internally. But understanding the gaps gives you more room to make decisions, develop people and plan recruitment.
If you’re thinking about retirement, passing the business on or stepping back from the day-to-day work, this matters to you as well. How much still depends on you being there?
It really is a juggle, isn’t it. Start with the roles the business depends on, have the conversations, and give the plan someone to own it.
If you need to discuss an engineering, manufacturing or technical recruitment gap, talk to me about permanent recruitment. We are there for emergencies, but we can also help you plan ahead.
Who am I?
I’m Mark Hopkins – engineer at heart, recruiter by trade, and the face behind Thomas Lee Recruitment. I’ve worked in recruitment since 2005, helping engineers and technical sales professionals find their next move and working with companies to build their teams.