
According to (Fagnani, n.d.) lack support from senior executives consider as
big challenge to implement succession planning. One reason of that is because
many of executives feel threatened and unsecure from training successors
because they think that it will increase the opportunity of replacing them.
Therefore, the executives might limit training and career development
opportunities that available to the potential employees. As a result, many of
executive leaders will stay in their position "despite the fact that the skills
needed for the job may have changed or they are no longer making a
meaningful and productive contribution to the organization". Moreover, many
of the leaders resist the change and prefer to run the company based on the
routine with the same leaders because having new leader means change in the
regular norms.

"Leaders need to develop and change organizations so they can survive to
meet new business challenges" (Newton, n.d.). At the same time the frequent
changes in the organization can lead to have unstable structure, which consider
as an obstacle of succession planning success. For example, company could
spend a lot of money and time to provide special training course and
workshops for potential employee to fill certain position. However, there is no
grantee that the potential employees will promote to this position because
company's leadership can decide to eliminate this position later or the potential
employee may decide to leave the company. As a result, company’s resources
and time will waste. Also, that can demotivate the potential employee.

According to (planning for success, 2006) short-range plan, luck of future
vision and prioritize profit making by leaders are challenges to implement
succession planning. As the process requires financial resources and well plan.
The plan must identify key positions and identify the employees who will train
for leadership carefully and objectively to avoid demotivation of other
employees (Newton, n.d.). Also, the company must design career planning for
the successors in order to gain the requiring skills of the positions and to
develop existent ones. However, if the company does not have long-rang plan
they will choose the employees randomly and that can lead to have new
leaders with a same level of qualification or less than the current leaders.

Lack of assessment tools and poor career development make succession
planning difficult to implement. Examples of assessment tools are 360o
feedback, career assessment center that include career evaluations, testing,
occupational guidance, qualified assessors and clear standers. The standers are
difficult to define because different leaders have different needs and
expectations on the replacements (Groehler, 2011). These assessment tools use
to evaluate the pool of potential employees and to look closer to the person’s
qualification, strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, the company that does not
have good assessment tools will face difficulty to assess employee’s skills and
define the needed skills to fulfill a certain leader position. In addition to that,
poor career development such as workshops, workbooks and educational
opportunities will not help to train and develop potential employee to the
require next level therefore it will not allow an internal advancement of
company employees as a result it can lead to choose the wrong employee or
the company will look for external potential to fill the position, which will
demotivate the company employees.

The other challenge companies face to implement the succession planning is
automate the process of collecting require data because the lack of a talent
assessment database. Most of the companies use Excel or Access document
and these programs need a lot of manual work, which leads to waste time,
increase costs and administrative works. Therefore, the process can delay and
demotivate the talents so they may leave the company (Groehler, 2011).
References:

Fagnani, S. (n.d.). How to Implement Succession Planning. Retrieved
November 3, 2012, from eHow:
http://www.ehow.com/how_6088034_implement-succession-planning.html

Groehler, L. (2011, Septemper 22). Avoiding Common Roadblocks in Your
Succession Planning Process . Retrieved November 3, 2012, from Viapeople:
http://web.viapeople.com/viaPeople-blog/bid/67428/Avoiding-CommonRoadblocks-in-Your-Succession-Planning-Process

Newton, P. (n.d.). Disadvantages of Succession Planning | eHow.com. eHow |
How to Videos, Articles & More - Discover the expert in you. | eHow.com.
Retrieved November 4, 2012, from
http://www.ehow.com/list_6722270_disadvantages-succession-planning.html

Planning for success. (2006). Retrieved Novmber 7, 2012, from Ajilon
succession planning:
http://www.hreonline.com/pdfs/03022007Extra_AjilonSuccessionPlanning.pd
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