AN ASSESSEMENT OF SUCCESSION PLANNING PRACTICES IN NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL (ETHIOPIA)

Abstract

In today’s globally competitive and modern environments, organisational plans often fail due to the lack of succession planning. However, numerous organisations often fail to prepare for the inevitable departure of employees, especially in strategically high-level positions. Succession planning is a means of identifying critical management positions starting at lower level management and extending up to the highest position in an organisation. In this regard, the succession planning current practices of Norwegian Refugee Council are assessed from varied dimensions. The main reason that motivated the researcher to focus on this study is reflections on the organization employee exit interview reports for above four consecutive years shows a big gap in relation to succession planning practice implementation. The research adopted a qualitative and quantitative approach to get in-depth examination of practices. The study targeted a population of all on and above coordinator level staffs in Addis Ababa and all five field offices. Data was collected using questionnaires and interviews. Data were analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the various sections of the measuring instrument were computed to establish construct validity. Content validity of the scale was ascertained by pre-testing the questionnaire with employees in the Norwegian Refugee Council Addis Ababa office. The result of the research work revealed that many aspects of the succession planning practices of the Norwegian Refugee Council are not exercised. Due to this, so many of the respondents testify that, the existing practices of the organization fail to satisfy the needs of the employees. This makes them less motivated and dissatisfied in the organization to work. Finally, in order to successfully implement the current succession planning system of the organization some main recommendations: open communication channel, opportunities for carrier development, linkage of performance management system with succession planning, identifying internal barriers and others were drawn based on the findings of the study.