Employees are at work at a company in Vinh Phuc Province. Enterprises should pay more attention to succession planning - PHOTO: VNA

HCMC – Vietnamese businesses should attach more importance to succession planning as it is essential for sustainable development, said experts at a virtual seminar held today, June 24.

At the seminar, “Succession development - an art or a technique”, jointly held by Kinh te Sai Gon, a publication of the Saigon Times Group, the Saigon Times Club and the L&A Investment Corporation, most of the experts agreed that enterprises and agencies should assess the growth of candidates for managerial posts, enhance their training and build roadmaps to retain and appoint them to these posts in the future.

The training and development of leadership successors is an important task of the predecessors. People are the most valuable assets of companies, deciding the future of companies, said Cao Thi Ngoc Dung, general director of Phu Nhuan Jewelry Joint Stock Company.

She added that both predecessors and successors must consider the job as their duty.

Richard McClellan, a strategy consultant and advisor to many executives, shared key principles for succession planning. He said it should be in line with an organization’s strategic plans and balance changes and continuity. In addition, leaders must get involved in the succession planning and prepare for it continuously.

Meanwhile, Fiona Cameron, director of People and Culture Education New Zealand (ENZ), said part of ENZ’s success had come from the building of a “succession mindset” or “succession planning”. It hires people who are willing to take charge of different areas of work and accept learning and development opportunities.

Most staff are bilingual and many can speak several languages, which is not so common in New Zealand. ENZ hires them to reduce risks so that it can maintain the operations of its offices with one to two people. They can do the jobs of those who leave their posts, Cameron noted.

ENZ always tries to foster an environment in which the staff can talk with their managers or teams.

Before Covid-19, an important task of ENZ’s succession planning was creating conditions for its employees to work in other offices. Since the pandemic broke out, it has employed Zoom and MS Teams more.

A fundamental factor for succession planning is that employees are nice to others and are trusting and open with sharing their skills with their colleagues.