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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Finding the right person for the job at Babcock International

Making sure that the best person is appointed for a role is anything but easy

Making sure that the best person is appointed for a role is anything but easy. Faced with a pool of possible candidates all with different skills and varying levels of experience and future potential makes final selection a daunting task. It's quite normal therefore for many managers to resort to gut instinct and guesswork when appointing staff.

Succession Planning is becoming a much more prominent issue for all organisations and with the move to flatter management structures it is now crucial that potential successors are identified early in order that disruption is minimised when key people leave the business.

UK software company Norchard Solutions specialise in succession planning software and their program, Succession Wizard, allows businesses to spot potentially critical gaps in their management and plan future staffing needs. They have just finalised an arrangement to supply UK-based Babcock International Group with Succession Wizard. Babcock is an asset management company looking after mission-critical needs for major clients such as the Royal Navy, BAA and Network Rail. Its group revenue for 2007 increased by 18% to almost 1billion with operating profits increasing by 35%.

Succession Wizard uses a powerful, yet user-friendly, interface making it simple to use and its intuitive approach allows organisations to easily spot potentially critical gaps in their management and thus plan future staffing needs before problems arise. Users can expect to be fully operational and producing effective succession plans within hours of implementing the solution, without any need for expensive consultants to configure the software or to purchase additional hardware, as the application is designed for standard desktop PC's.

Organisations generally have a wealth of talent already working in different positions and levels throughout their business. Director, Jon Lear, believes this hidden resource should be tapped and identified as it is a key factor in effective succession planning. Succession Wizard allows you to do this and understand what skills and resources you already have at your disposal. It can identify those people who, with support and training, can climb your management structure and potentially become its future leaders.

Anyone wishing to evaluate their software can do so by visiting: