One of the questions we hear most often when talking about succession planning has to do with bench strength. Bench strength is another one of those sports analogies we’ve all come to love that speaks to the depth of our organizations. Who do we have waiting in the wings to step into a new position when needed?

The issue gets a lot of press whenever a high level executive at a major company prepares to step down (as with Jack Welch at GE) or dies (with the unfortunate passing of Jim Cantalupo of McDonalds). In McDonald’s case, the company had no significant succession plan and struggled both in terms of strategic direction and stock price. In Mr. Welch’s case, the succession planning process had begun years in advance because both the position and the person were so obviously important as to merit some serious thinking about who would step in. But what about lower down in the organization at the VP level, the director level, even the manager level?

The truth is that, in the new information worker driven economy, every level is important. During the industrial age, when most workers were performing tasks now done by machine, succession planning for the organization was basically irrelevant. But now think about Google. Google exists because a couple of guys had a good idea and the will to make it work. The company thrives because it hires the smartest people it can find and sets them free to do their best. No machine can do what any Google employee does, and most likely, none can do what you do either. The skill set is paramount.

So back to bench strength. Today’s workers are basically free agents (more sports analogies, sorry). As we all know, the days of working for one employer for an entire career are long gone. The norm is now for employees to move freely about the business world wherever they can find the best deal for themselves. How can a company make them feel important, show them movement, win the war for talent? Thinking pragmatically about bench strength is part of the answer.

So where can you start?

Understanding and evaluating your bench strength is predicated on visibility into your workforce:

· Who do you have available?
· What are their strengths and weaknesses?
· What is their skill set?
· What motivates them?

These data points can come from a variety of places. They can come from other systems or processes such as performance assessment, competency assessment, performance reviews or even Myers-Briggs. The point is that you can’t begin to think about bench strength or succession planning until you’ve got a good picture of your workforce.

Once the visibility is in place, you can begin to analyze the data from the perspective of bench strength. You can seek out the talent gaps in your organizations to find out what skills are lacking. You can examine which roles have many potential backups, and which have none. You can explore the far reaches of your company to find talent in places you’d have hardly looked before.

The challenge is figuring out where to start and what tools you’ll use to get there. And the answer is unique to your organization.

What strategies and tactics have you used to understand bench strength or implement succession planning? Share your experiences and your wisdom.