Succession planning is vital to the continuity of your club. It ensures your club can continue to be successful and provide members with what they need. While some turnover of jobs is normal, high turnover rates can be a problem.

If the workload falls to only one or two people, the quality and fortunes of the club can quickly decline when those people leave. A succession plan will ensure that if someone steps down, someone can step into their shoes and pick up where they left off. Organisations that plan for smooth transitions of leadership positions are less likely to experience disruptions to their business.

Keys to a good succession plan

Many of the components of a good succession plan will also help other areas of the club. These will usually cover how things are done in the club, such as:

• having job descriptions so that current volunteers know what they should be doing, and what might be expected of new volunteers
• having a business or strategic plan so that anyone who is new to a committee can find out exactly what the future priorities are
• having a policies and procedures manual so that volunteers know how everything should be done.

The second part of good succession planning is human resources. Many of the above issues relate to people, whether it is fearing change, staying around for too long, or being the ‘gatekeeper’ (see description below). Trying to avoid any of these situations is as important as trying to groom successors for certain positions. This ensures that when the time for a changeover comes, it can be managed with a minimum of disruption and fuss. The ideal succession plan will allow existing volunteers to walk away without being missed.

Barriers to succession planning

There are some barriers to succession planning that your club might face. There may be some committee members or volunteers who are behaving in a certain way, or the committee may have processes that will not make succession planning easy.

Some common hurdles that might prevent effective succession planning are:

• The gatekeeper — a person on the committee who has probably been around for a while who holds all the knowledge and runs a system only they understand.
• The irreplaceable person — a member who believes they are irreplaceable and the committee will not function without them. This person usually has been on the committee for years.
• Poor record keeping — if important information, such as financial data or minutes of meetings, is not documented and made accessible, it is only retained in the memories of those involved in the process. Once these people leave, so does the information.
• Seniors take all — clubs that believe that those around the longest deserve the best positions will always have trouble with succession planning. Positions should be awarded to those best able to do the job, including newer or junior members if they have the required skills.
• The longtime committee member — a member who has reached their ‘use by date’.
• Fear of change — if the committee is fearful of change, there will be a reluctance to have a succession plan in place.