Many organizations have key positions in their organizational structure that are essential for efficient day-to-day business. Vacant key positions have the potential to negatively affect the business. Succession management is a useful tool talent management specialists can use to help their organizations avoid vacant positions by building benches for key positions and maintaining profiles of potential successors.

Succession management in SAP ERP 6.0 enhancement package 4 features four new functions for talent management specialists, which include the ability to:

• Conduct talent review meetings
• Conduct talent calibration
• Maintain talent profiles and assessments for the employees
• Maintain and cascade organizational goals

Talent management specialists and managers work together to build the bench by identifying qualified individuals. They use succession management to match position requirements to the individual’s qualifications. This helps determine the individual’s strengths and weaknesses and whether or not he or she would require additional training, further job experience, or mentoring.

Some candidates may require more than three to five years of additional training or mentoring to become qualified. Succession management provides the opportunity for the organization to mentor and train that candidate. If a position becomes available and the candidate is still not qualified, the organization will hire someone externally or look for another qualified internal candidate.  

Talent management specialists and managers work with their organization and succession management to define a process for succession planning and developing the employee’s career path.

Figure 1 shows the succession management data model. The data model shows the relationships between objects, the evaluation paths, and the infotypes in the succession management component.

Figure 1

Succession management data model

Prerequisites for Implementing Succession Management

Before you attempt to implement succession management, ensure you have performed the following functions:

• Activate HCM, Core Processes in Talent Management (HCM_TMC_CI_1)

• Install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player
• Install Adobe Document Services
• Install SAP NetWeaver Portal

• Implement the following business packages:
  • Business Package for Talent Management Specialist 1.40
  • Business Package for Manager Self-Service 1.41
  • Business Package for Employee Self-Service 1.41
• Activate the business function ERP_ENTERPRISESEARCH
• Install TREX 7.10 (Refer to SAP Note 1273780)

The Talent Management Specialist Interface

Figure 2 shows the user interface within the succession management component that talent management specialists use to perform their tasks. In addition to the new functions I mentioned above, talent management specialists must:

• Create and maintain talent groups
• Maintain job architecture
• Work with managers to identify key talents, key positions, and development needs for potential employees
• Review and maintain employee talent information

Figure 2

Talent management specialist user interface

To set up an employee’s talent information, click Talent Information under the Detailed Navigation section in the interface. Enter the employee’s name or personnel number. Select the employee and click the Talent Profile button.

Figure 3 shows a selected employee’s talent profile. Talent management specialists enter information in the following tabs: Resume, Talent Assessment, Mobility, Career Goal, and Development Plan.

Figure 3

Talent management specialists use talent profiles to perform succession planning functions

Talent management specialists can use the sliders in the profile to rate the employee’s performance, potential, core competencies, derailers, mobility, languages, internal work experience, and future development.

Talent management specialists are not the only ones maintaining these talent profiles. Depending on the organization’s business requirements, some allow employees to maintain their own talent profiles, and some allow the managers to maintain them. My preference is to have the employees manage their own profiles and to have their managers assess them.

Table 1 shows the details of the iView for a talent profile maintained by the talent management specialist on behalf of the employee.

Table 1

Talent profile iView for profile maintained by the talent management specialist

Table 2 shows the details of the iView for a talent profile maintained by the employee.

Table 2

Talent profile iView for profile maintained by the employee

You can customize talent profiles by following IMG menu path Talent Management and Talent Development > Talent Profile.

Talent Assessment

The talent profile in succession management features a Talent Assessment tab, where managers and talent management specialists can analyze employees’ strengths and skills (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Managers and talent management specialists use the talent assessment functionality to enter a comprehensive assessment of the employee

Talent assessment is an important component in the talent management process. It gives the organization a clear picture of the employee’s potential and allows it to compare candidates. This component also enables candidates in personal development and helps organizations build bench strength for key positions.

You can customize the data for talent assessment via IMG menu path Talent Management And Talent Development > Talent Assessment.

Table 3 shows the details of the talent assessment iView.

Table 3

Talent assessment iView

Using the talent assessment functionality, managers and talent management specialists can nominate the talent to a talent group and assign a reason for the nomination.

You can access the talent assessment functionality from the manager portal for SAP ERP HCM. Click Assessment under the Services section (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Services for talent management

Table 4 shows the details of the MSS iView.

Table 4

MSS iView

Once the manager or the talent management specialist finalizes the assessment and updates the status to Completed, no further edits or changes are possible in talent assessment for the validity period. If you need to correct the assessment, you must use a Business Add-In (BAdI).

Note
Unlike talent profiles, talent groups used in succession planning are very different from talent groups maintained in SAP E-Recruiting. If you have SAP E-Recruiting in your landscape, the talent groups in SAP E-Recruiting and succession management do not need to be the same. For more details about talent groups, refer to my article, "Talent Groups in SAP e-Recruitment Target the Right Candidate."

Job Architecture

In SAP ERP 6.0 enhancement package 4, job architecture is the basis for succession management (Figure 6). The job architecture consists of:

• Functional areas (Object type FN)
• Job families (Object type JF)
• Jobs (Object type C)
• Positions (Object type S)

Figure 6

The data model of the job architecture

You can maintain the job architecture either through SAP Talent Visualization or succession management. The data you maintain in SAP Talent Visualization still resides in SAP ERP HCM. If you have Nakisa implemented, I suggest using SAP Talent Visualization because of its data visualization capability. Otherwise, it is your choice which to use.

If you decide to maintain the job architecture in SAP ERP HCM, use transaction HRTMC_PPOM (Figure 7). 

Figure 7

Transaction HRTMC_PPOM allows you to create, edit, or maintain the functional areas

Table 5 shows all the transaction codes you need to create and maintain succession planning in the back end. 

Table 5

Transaction codes for succession planning

Table 6 shows the standard roles for succession management. You can use these as templates.

Table 6

Standard roles in succession management

Infotypes in Succession Management

Table 7 summarizes the new infotypes you use in succession management.

Table 7

New infotypes for succession management

Venki Krishnamoorthy

Venki Krishnamoorthy is an author, speaker, and SAP ERP HCM talent management solutions subject-matter expert. He is currently an independent SAP ERP HCM functional consultant. Venki has over 10 years of experience as a functional lead, project manager, and program manager in the HCM space. Besides implementing SAP HCM solutions, he has implemented and acted as a trusted advisor on SAP ERP HCM talent management implementations, including E-Recruiting, HCM Performance Management, Succession Planning, SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa, Learning Solutions, and Employee Self-Service and Manager Self-Services. He is the coauthor of three books: E-Recruiting with SAP ERP HCM, SAP ERP HCM Infotypes: Your Quick Reference to HR Infotypes, and SAP Transaction Codes: Your Quick Reference to T-Codes in SAP ERP.

You may contact the author at krish.venki1@gmail.com.

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