Management Essay Example: Succession Planning in Nursing

Succession planning: this is the process of picking out and developing internal employees of an organisation who have the potential to inherit important leadership roles in it (Sweeney, 2013). This ensures that experienced and proficient employees are ready to take up the leadership roles as they avail.

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Though succession planning has been widespread among most organisations; it has not been common among leadership areas in nursing. If the process is applied in the nursing sector well, it would have unlimited benefits.

Phases of a successful succession plan

Identify the values of leadership to be used as criteria to select talent pool

Create the talent pool; employees that fit the stated criterion

Ensure communication between individuals in the assessment panel- ensures transparency in the development and selection process

Provide each employee inside the talent pool with the liberty to accept or decline promotion

Finally, appoint leaders from talent pool

Unplanned succession in leadership would result in shortages of nurses or appointment of those with insufficient leadership skills. This would result to understaffing and also poor management which would cause delivery of poor services to the patients.

The Benefits of Succession Planning.It will ensure the appointment of new leaders who are trained and aware of their new roles and responsibilities (Denker, 2014). This will maintain the quality of healthcare service offered thus positive patient outcome.

Reduce the chances of the occurrence of insufficient nurses in the healthcare facility (considering the recent nurse shortage and ageing workforce). This prevents the deaths which would otherwise occur. This ensures that the patients receive the treatment they need and deserve towards recovery.

It will ensure high-level job satisfaction since the nurses have sufficient educational and leadership preparation thus delivery of quality treatment to patients (Mariotti, 2014). Nurses who are happy with their responsibilities will most likely deliver excellent services to patients resulting to positive patient outcomes.

A properly implemented succession planning process will boost the morale of all stakeholders in the health facility thus high performance and more fund that can be used for expansion.

With the increasing shortage of nurses, if a health facility management embraces succession planning, it will capture a leader among the few very skilled personnel and convert them to great leaders. These leaders will enhance the reputation of the facility thus better services to patients in future.

If health facilities invest in leadership development, it will help them acquire an institutional culture that will maximize performance and adaptability in the market. The success of the industry will at the end result to improved quality of health facilities and higher patient recovery rates.

References

Denker, A. G. (2014). Transformational Leadership in Nursing: A Pilot Nurse LeaderDevelopment Program.

Mariotti, N. (2014). Development and Implementation of a Succession Plan for the nursing department in a Community Hospital.

Sweeney, B. (2013). Success through Succession: A Review of Recent Literature. Queen'sUniversity IRC. Retrieved 7 July 2016, from http://irc.queensu.ca/articles/successthrough-succession-review-recent-literature