Effective Succession Planning Strategies

This assignment focuses on developing a comprehensive succession planning strategy. The plan should aim to eliminate bias in candidate selection and effectively identify the most suitable individual for each position. It emphasizes the importance of a structured approach to ensure fair and objective outcomes.

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vibe
NAME:
institution:

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Management
By (Name)
Course
Professor
University
Date

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Executive summary
Vibe is a marketing, web design and public relations company owned by Sam Nguyen. It
was started ten years ago, with Sam as the chief web designer and his other friends as the
marketers. The staff of the company talk, interact and work in an open plan office and the
business workforce has increased to 20. The customer base has also grown. Currently, Sam has
two team leaders who give him the necessary feedback and reports; Andrea is in charge of public
relations and marketing, and Rakesh, manages the web design department. The two teams share
the workforce of 20 equally, with shared sales, reception, and administration staff.

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Contents
Executive summary..................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................4
Problem identification.............................................................................................................................4
Equity or Expectancy Theory...................................................................................................................5
How Sam can keep Julie and Sarah motivated........................................................................................6
Job design and enlargement....................................................................................................................6
Succession plan.......................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations...................................................................................................................................8
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Sam Nguyen, the owner of Vibe Company, derives a sense of satisfaction when he sees
his team members work, interact, and talk in the open plan office. The employees look engaged
and happy with their work. Nguyen had started his company ten years ago with his two other
friends. By then, he was the web designer for the company and his two other friends specialized
in marketing. The progress of the company was appealing. During the ten years, Nguyen had
managed to grow his workforce to 20, his customer base has expanded, and the office space had
expanded to accommodate all his employees. Vibe’s workforce is divided into two; the
marketing and public relations department, with Andrea in charge, and the web design
department, with Rakesh in charge. The two teams, however, are independent in their operations
but cases of job overlap are frequently reported when conducting jobs that require a cross-team
approach.
Problem identification
Things were moving well in the company until the day Andrea decided to resign. Sam
had problems deciding who would replace her. After analyzing the capabilities of three in-house
candidates, he settled for Grant, a young man with technical skills but had problems interacting
with some of the staff. Julie and Sarah were not pleased with Sam’s decision for the obvious
reasons; they felt that their exceptional marketing profession, excellent relationship skills with
clients and hard-work were not recognized. During the first week of the position rearrangements,
the work atmosphere at Vibes was not appealing. Grant experienced a hard time managing the
company, especially due to the stubbornness portrayed by Sarah and Julie. At this moment, Sam
realizes that he has to make a major decision. The decision has to be wise since he does not want

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to lose Sarah and Julie. Sam realizes that he had made some major mistakes which resulted to
unpreparedness in the event of extremities.
Equity or Expectancy Theory
The theory of equity is based on motivation and argues that behaviors are influenced by
equity. The Equity theory’s structure is composed of four interlocking propositions. The first
proposition suggests that people will endeavor to increase their outcomes in a scenario where
their outcome is equivalent to their reward minus punishment. The second proposition states that
people working in a group may enhance their joint reward by creating tools that enable the
equitable sharing of resources, reward any team member who portrays equitable treatment to
others and punishes those who promote unfairness (Hayibor, 2012, pp. 250). According to the
third proposition, people who discover that they are playing a role in the promotion of injustice,
they portray a level of distress that is equivalent to the in-equitability level displayed. The fourth
proposition suggests that people tend to resolve equity and eliminate distress in situations where
they are faced with in-equitability. On the other hand, the theory of expectancy suggests that
there is a strong relationship between rewards and the output (Nasri, and Charfeddine, 2012, pp.
168). It is evident from the case study that Sam did not follow the Equity theory when making
the changes in his company. Sarah and Julie, therefore, felt concerned about the manner in which
the rewards were distributed. An equitable distribution requires that every individual in a group
receives a reward that is equivalent to their inputs (Renko, Kroeck and Bullough, 2012, pp.
669). When Sarah and Julie realized that their efforts were not being acknowledged, they
resulted in taking various actions which included lowering their efforts into the job and giving
Grant a hard time.

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How Sam can keep Julie and Sarah motivated
One of the management’s most challenging duties is efficiently motivating the
employees. The term motivations describe the psychological processes that trigger persistence
and excitement of noncompulsory aims purposed for some objective. Sam can keep Sarah and
Julie engaged and motivated in the long term by applying the Drives and Needs motivational
theories. The Drive approach views motivation in the perspective of biological needs. The
physiological needs, for instance, hunger, acts as the driving force which makes people act by the
requirements of those needs (Deci and Ryan, 2012, pp. 101). In this case, hunger will motivate a
person to look for food. The drive theory asserts that people do things to redeem the feeling of
balance and comfort. The Needs theories point out some internal factors that may motivate
people to fulfill their needs. Sam, therefore, needs to review these ideas and identify some of the
internal factors that can be restructured to motivate Sarah and Julie.
It is important for Sam no note that employees derive a feeling of dissatisfaction from
lack of recognition or disapproval of efforts. A simple word of ‘thank you’ means a lot to the
employees. It helps to foster a positive culture in the workplace, it encourages communication,
teamwork, encouragement and so on.
Job design and enlargement
The operational effectiveness and staff motivation at vibes can be increased through job
design and enlargement. Job design entails the rearrangements at the work environment that are
aimed at reducing employee alienation and job dissatisfaction arising from monotonous and
repetitive tasks (Truxillo, Cadiz, Rineer, Zaniboni and Fraccaroli, 2012, pp. 350). Productivity in

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organizations is achieved through job design. Managers offer non-monetary rewards which
include greater satisfaction (Latham, 2012, pp. 21). Job enlargement, job rotation, job
simplification, and job enrichment are some of the techniques used in the process of job design
(Wood, Van Veldhoven Croon and de Menezes, 2012, pp. 440). Job enlargement is a method of
job design which involves the combination of various functions at the same level of business. It
is also referred as the horizontal expansion of a job (Volmer, Spurk and Niessen, 2012, pp. 456).
A company such as vibes, for instance, may not have a high count of promotion opportunities.
Therefore, it may try to motivate its employees through the adoption of job enlargement (Petri
and Govern, 2012, pp. 36). If Grant, the manager at the company, is currently performing two
tasks and after job enlargement, three more activities are added, Grant will now be performing
five tasks. This will increase the motivation of Grant, and he will work harder to complete his
tasks. The new earnings after job enlargement also play a part in the motivation of employees.
Succession plan
There are some essential factors Sam should consider when creating a succession plan. A
succession plan is a formal program that corresponds to the long-term strategies of a business. It
needs a comprehensive understanding of the nuances and complexities of the business’s
procedures and processes, and in some way combines with other strategies such as professional
development, talent acquisition, and employee engagement. Pertaining the content of the plan, it
entails more than just naming replacements. Instead, the talent and potential of each candidate
should be critically analyzed (Gilding, Gregory and Cosson, 2015, pp. 300). There are some key
factors that need to be considered when developing a succession plan. First, there is need to
identify the profile of the existing leadership positions. In other words, a clear evaluation of the

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aspects that make the existing leaders successful should be conducted. Some of the factors to be
analyzed include their strengths and leadership capabilities, their skills, experiences, and success.
Essentially, the identified profile acts as the benchmark for evaluation of potential candidates in
the succession plan. The profile also serves to eliminate the bias (Griffith, 2012, pp. 900). The
benchmark, however, should be revisited on a regular basis to remain cognizant and flexible of
future modifications in the market, the company, and the leadership team. An annual evaluation,
for instance, will enable the company to maintain a common vision of the succession plan (Durst
and Wilhelm, 2012. pp. 641). A shared vision helps to expedite the plan. On the side note, it is
important to point out that the potential candidates will rarely possess very requirement stated on
the profile. Failure to acknowledge this may result to the inflexibility of the plan and time
wastage in the process of searching for a “perfect” candidate (Kim, 2012, pp. 40). Other factors
to consider include the gaps that will occur after promotion, the time taken to develop a leader
and how the company will ensure open feedback and communication.
Recommendations
Being transparent helps to create a productive work environment. Sam should have been
more open to Sarah and Julie on why he chose Grant over them. He ought to have made them
understand that having a part-time manager would be risky to the business. Indeed, the customers
would have thought that the company does not take them seriously. Also, the employees at Vibes
will be motivated to work hard just to hear the words ‘thank you’ coming from the manager.
Offering benefits beyond the basics also plays a significant role in the motivation of the
employees. Life insurance and other ancillary benefits, for instance, can make Sarah and Julie
forget about the managerial position and instead work hard to get these benefits. Finally, Sam

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should come up with a succession plan for his company. The plan would serve to eliminate cases
of bias when choosing candidates. Also, it would help him identify the best candidate for the job.

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Bibliography
Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M., 2012. Motivation, personality, and development within embedded
social contexts: An overview of self-determination theory. The Oxford handbook of human
motivation, pp.85-107.
Durst, S. and Wilhelm, S., 2012. Knowledge management and succession planning in SMEs.
Journal of Knowledge Management, 16(4), pp.637-649.
Gilding, M., Gregory, S. and Cosson, B., 2015. Motives and outcomes in family business
succession planning. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(2), pp.299-312.
Griffith, M.B., 2012. Effective succession planning in nursing: a review of the literature. Journal
of nursing management, 20(7), pp.900-911.
Hayibor, S., 2012. Equity and expectancy considerations in stakeholder action. Business &
Society, 51(2), pp.220-262.
Kim, T.H., 2012. Succession planning in hospitals and the association with organizational
performance. Nursing Economics, 30(1), p.14.
Latham, G.P., 2012. Work motivation: History, theory, research, and practice. Sage.
Nasri, W. and Charfeddine, L., 2012. Motivating salespeople to contribute to marketing
intelligence activities: An expectancy theory approach. International Journal of Marketing
Studies, 4(1), p.168.
Petri, H.L. and Govern, J.M., 2012. Motivation: Theory, research, and application. Cengage
Learning.

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Renko, M., Kroeck, K.G. and Bullough, A., 2012. Expectancy theory and nascent
entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 39(3), pp.667-684.
Truxillo, D.M., Cadiz, D.M., Rineer, J.R., Zaniboni, S. and Fraccaroli, F., 2012. A lifespan
perspective on job design: Fitting the job and the worker to promote job satisfaction,
engagement, and performance. Organizational Psychology Review, 2(4), pp.340-360.
Volmer, J., Spurk, D. and Niessen, C., 2012. Leader–member exchange (LMX), job autonomy,
and creative work involvement. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(3), pp.456-465.
Wood, S., Van Veldhoven, M., Croon, M. and de Menezes, L.M., 2012. Enriched job design,
high involvement management and organizational performance: The mediating roles of job
satisfaction and well-being. Human relations, 65(4), pp.419-445.