Best Free Succession Planning Template for 2025

Succession planning is essential for securing an organization’s long-term success. It is the job of HR to work with their boards of directors to create and maintain a proper succession plan. While there are many resources, it’s always best to design your succession planning template to ensure your tool meets your organization’s needs. With the proper plan in place, you’ll readily be able to ascertain vital positions, identify high-potential employees who can step into those roles, build committed talent pools, and speed up the development of the skills your staff needs to be successful.

Let’s dive into the process of actually creating these essential tools.

What is Succession Planning?

Succession planning builds leadership continuity, helping organizations thrive well into the future. It starts with pinpointing mission-critical roles, understanding the competencies needed, and equipping internal talent to lead confidently—the result is stability, continuity, and sustained growth.

Taking succession planning seriously helps organizations focus on long-term goals while growing talent from within. It sends a clear message to employees: your growth matters, and your next opportunity could be just around the corner. A solid succession planning form and process helps leaders keep track of readiness levels across the organization and provides a roadmap for talent development.

What is a Succession Planning Template?

Think of a succession planning template as a guide. It helps organizations spot important roles, build strong talent pipelines, and plan. The template also maps out what’s needed—successor options, training plans, and timing. A well-designed succession plan template ensures consistency, efficiency, and thoroughness in succession planning.

Many organizations customize their template for succession planning or employee succession planning templates to match their specific needs, but many publicly available formats exist. Whether using a succession plan example PDF or building a unique succession planning form, having a clearly defined template can help make the process more transparent and easier to manage.

Why Use a Succession Planning Template?

A good succession planning template makes everything easier. It outlines the process—from finding critical roles to shaping development paths for future leaders—helping you avoid missteps. When HR teams follow a structure like this, staying aligned and maintaining momentum is easier.

A succession planning template can make the process fairer, even on the playing field. It helps teams focus on facts—like job skills and performance—rather than opinions. Whether you’re putting together your succession plan sample or working from a succession plan example PDF, having a clear structure makes decisions easier and more transparent.

1. Determine the Type of Plan

Think about what’s prompting your focus on succession planning. Are you trying to stay ahead by being proactive? Are you preparing for an expected retirement that might leave a leadership position open? Or is your company shifting directions soon, which would call for a new leadership approach?

Understanding the motivation behind your planning efforts will help you create a solution that fits your organization’s goals.

2. Create a Succession Planning Team

Getting the right people involved in succession planning is key. That often includes HR leaders and board members who understand the organization’s direction. Still, you should also consider bringing employees from other parts of the organization in so you can remain connected to your staff at every level. Look for process-oriented employees, effective communicators, and knowledgeable about job competencies and competency development.

3. Identify the Main Factors that Will Influence Your Plan

It’s important to anticipate changes that could alter the status of your succession plan. For instance, changes in the marketplace could demand different skills from the people in leadership positions. Along similar lines, you might see significant changes in your workplace that could lead to a more diverse team, thereby requiring a change in how you develop talent internally.

4. Incorporate Your Succession Plan Into Your Overall Strategic Plan

A successful succession plan must be linked to your overall strategic plan to deliver real value. In doing so, you’ll tell people—both internal and external customers—what your business is about and where you’re going in the future. Your succession plan won’t get far if it’s out of step with your overall goals. For success, both plans must align and fully support one another.

5. Identify Key Positions

Think about the essential roles in your organization—positions like senior leaders, technical experts, or people with highly specialized knowledge. Once you’ve identified them, you can begin focusing your succession planning where it matters most and direct your resources more effectively.

6. Identify Potential Successor Candidates

Start by asking yourself which roles are essential to your organization—those that, if vacant, would disrupt operations. Once you’ve identified those, consider what it takes to do them well. What experience, skills, or qualities make someone effective in that role? With those competencies in mind, begin identifying people who could step into those roles, whether they’re already part of your team or external candidates worth considering.

7. Gather Information

Start gathering the information that reveals who’s ready to move forward. Look at performance metrics, gather manager input, and listen to what employees say about their ambitions. A succession planning form brings all this into one place, giving you a clear picture of each candidate’s readiness. A well-structured succession planning form makes the evaluation process easier to manage.

8. Determine Successor Criteria

Be clear about what each key role demands—spell out the skills, experience, and traits required for success. Once you’ve outlined the criteria, use them to evaluate both internal employees and possible outside hires. It’s a good way to stay objective and keep your development work focused.

9. Outline Development Plans and a Timeline

Know what you’re looking for. Define the qualities that matter most in every critical role. Those benchmarks will help you measure potential and design a development plan that prepares people for what’s next.

10. Shape Action Plans

Succession plans can’t operate all by themselves. To be effective, they need to become actionable strategies owned and executed by key team members. Each action plan should incorporate the following:

• Measurable goals
• Specific timelines
• Assign specific individuals to carry out each step of the plan
• Have the succession team regularly track progress
• Review results on an ongoing basis
• Make updates when unexpected changes arise

11. Establish a Communication Strategy

It’s essential to maintain transparency while managing expectations. Share the goals of your succession planning process with key stakeholders—and, when it makes sense, with employees in the pipeline, too. Being open about your plans builds trust and prevents confusion or frustration.

12. Monitor and Review

Keep an eye on progress toward development goals and revisit readiness levels often. The succession planning process isn’t static—it should shift as your business strategy and team performance evolve. Regular check-ins help keep the helpful plan on point.

13. Carry Out Contingency Planning

Even the best plans can fail. Prepare for the unexpected by naming backup successors and building contingency plans. With the proper foresight, your succession plan can adapt and hold steady—even during surprise transitions.

14. Assess Legal and Ethical Considerations

Ensure your succession planning practices comply with employment laws and promote fairness. Avoid practices that could lead to discrimination or bias. A succession plan template should include checks for compliance and ethical standards.

15. Document the Plan

Be sure to capture each step of the succession planning process in a template. Clear documentation makes it easier to stay on track, follow through, and repeat the process when needed.

Free Succession Planning Templates

Free templates are a great starting point for building your succession planning toolkit. Whether new to planning or want to standardize your approach, a well-organized template can save time and effort.

As a succession plan example, these templates often come in formats like Excel sheets, Google Docs, or PDFs. Organizations can tailor them to suit their needs or use them as inspiration when creating their succession planning form or employee succession planning template.

Basic Succession Planning Template

Includes fields for key roles, potential successors, current performance, readiness levels, and development plans. Practical for smaller organizations.

Emergency Succession Planning Template

Helps companies prepare for sudden departures and maintain continuity in leadership.

Skills Gap Analysis Template

Highlights discrepancies between current and future competency needs, guiding development plans.

Employee Development Plan Template

Outlines each employee’s growth path, useful in succession planning frameworks.

Succession Planning Template for Strong Candidate Identification

Evaluates multiple candidates side by side using objective performance metrics and feedback.

Succession Planning Best Practices

• Identify Critical Roles and Competencies – Focus on positions that are vital to success and clarify what skills are needed.
• Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning – Support employees with tools and programs to grow.
• Keep Open Communication – Communicate your plans and intentions clearly to build trust.
• Monitor and Review – Regularly revisit and update your succession plan template as needs evolve.

Challenges Involved with Succession Planning

Succession planning is difficult without updated knowledge of your workforce. Succession planning software helps by:

• Deciding who to promote based on up-to-date skill data.
• Resisting bias through data-driven decisions.
• Maintaining morale by normalizing succession conversations and reducing fear.

Get ahead of leadership transitions by being proactive and leveraging the right technology.

FAQ’s

How do you create a succession planning document?

Identify key roles, define required competencies, assess current talent, outline development plans, assign owners, and update regularly.

What are the 5 steps of succession planning?

• Identify key roles
• Define successor criteria
• Assess internal talent
• Develop succession plans
• Review and update regularly

What are the 5 D’s of succession planning?

• Death
• Disability
• Divorce
• Disagreement
• Departure

What should a succession plan include?

• List of critical roles
• Successor criteria
• Talent assessment
• Development plans
• Communication strategy
• Timeline
• Contingency planning
• Review and update schedules