Best Succession Planning software of 2026: which is right for you?

No business wants to lose its best employees. When employees retire or quit, it creates a workflow imbalance, resulting in lower productivity until their replacement is found. While this may not impact large businesses as much, small businesses like yours bear the brunt of it the most.

For that reason, you need to plan ahead to minimize this productivity loss and ensure stability in the structure and processes, despite attrition. You can do this by identifying valuable skill sets or potential in the current workforce to replace outgoing employees.

The process of identifying, nurturing and retaining employees for future roles is known as succession planning.

With the help of a succession planning tool, HR teams can aggregate vital data about employee performance, potential and development. This data can help them make decisions about how to replace outgoing executives and high-value employees.

But it's not always easy to find the right succession planning software on your own. You need a detailed understanding of the software features. Fully realizing the benefits of these features will help you purchase the right software. This guide will help you understand succession planning software, its features and benefits.

Here's what we'll cover:

What Is Succession Planning Software?

Common Features of Succession Planning Software

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Benefits of Succession Planning Software

Key Considerations

What Is Succession Planning Software?

Succession planning software helps HR managers make decisions about how to replace employees who are retiring or resigning. For business continuity, it's crucial to fill these employment gaps as quickly as possible.

The software helps in the following ways:

• Defines the competencies required to undertake the required roles.

• Identifies employees who have the potential to fill a given role.

• Assesses employees against set criteria.

• Trains employees to move into new roles by primarily leveraging the right experiences.

• Builds a database that can be used to make future staffing decisions for key roles.

Succession planning in EmployeeConnect (Source)

Common Features of Succession Planning Software

In this section, we cover the key software features that a buyer should be aware of before they purchase a solution. Most small businesses will need some (or all) of these features in their succession planning software:

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Before you start shortlisting vendor options for succession planning software, you need to understand your buyer type. This will help you analyze your requirements and prioritize software features into "must-have" and "optional" for your business.

This section breaks down the most common buyer types. Here are the two main categories of buyers:

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs): They typically operate with a few resources and employees on tight budgets. Succession planning software can help them better manage their resources and employees, avoid disruptions in the workflow and sustain the business for a longer duration of time. The main features that these buyers need in a succession planning tool are goal management, talent pool and training management.

Large businesses: They operate in a complex hierarchy, with employees spread across different locations. Large businesses significantly benefit from a talented workforce that is keen to take on leadership roles in the future. They need a comprehensive approach to ensure that future leaders have the essential industry expertise. Succession planning software should help their talent climb up the career ladder. The primary features they will need are competency modelling and training management.

Benefits of Succession Planning Software

Here are some of the benefits of using succession planning tools in your business:

Centralized database to store, track employee data: Storing employee data in a central database allows HR managers to view, edit or update employee information easily. It also lets them pull talent metrics from the database for different jobs and filter employees based on location, skills, role and other criteria.

Periodic performance evaluations: Succession planning software allows HR managers to evaluate employees on a regular basis (weekly, monthly or yearly). The feedback helps managers identify the top talent in the organization.

Identification of skill gaps: By mapping employee skills to desired competencies, HR managers can identify employees' key strengths and weaknesses. They can then provide leadership training to the top performers and personalized training or individual development plans for those who lack the desired skills.

Business continuity: Irrespective of their size or industry, all businesses need succession plans to prepare for sudden resignations and terminations. Thirty-five percent of businesses have a structured succession planning process and 34 percent verified that their succession planning was highly effective. The top reasons to implement succession planning in their business are to identify and prepare future leaders (89 percent) and ensure business continuity (72 percent).

Key Considerations

Picture this: You find a succession planning solution that has all the relevant features, but lacks the option for integration. This could hamper your business in the future. Unfortunately, such instances aren't uncommon and require a thorough check before purchasing a solution. Here are some things you should keep in mind:

Support services: Before you start assessing succession planning tools, consider your employees and the type of support (email, phone or chat) they would prefer. In case, a support option isn't available, check if the vendor provides support forums and discussion boards to help employees resolve their queries.

Speed of implementation: The implementation time will depend on the type of software you choose—an integrated system or standalone software. Integrated tools require a significant investment of time and resources compared with standalone ones. Check with the vendor about the time it'll take to implement the tool and train users.

Data transfer services: When migrating from a legacy system, businesses need to transfer the data to the new system. Most vendors include a data transfer option in the software license cost, while others charge extra for it. If data transfer services aren't included, you may need to hire a third party, which would further increase your budget.

Scalability: Choose a tool that is scalable in terms of the number of licenses or users. This will help you prepare for future growth as you will be able to add new users as and when needed. You should also ensure that there aren't any hidden costs or fees before you purchase a solution.