A change in leadership need not be traumatic if you have the right people with the right skills swimming in your talent pool.

Two-thirds of managers who participated in Roffey Park’s 2008 Management Agenda confirmed that change is the biggest challenge facing them and 55% of respondents acknowledged their failure to actively develop leadership at all levels of the business.

Surely one of the most effective ways for HR to tackle change head on is to develop leadership competencies among existing talent and have in place a robust yet flexible succession planning policy to ensure staffing and talent management is anchored at the top of HR and the organisation’s strategic agenda?

Succession planning does, certainly at first glance, seem like a straightforward solution to managing change, but it is a challenge that many HR professionals find hard to get right. In reality it's usually not until your best performer tenders their resignation that you understand the benefits you could have realised if you had a proper succession planning process in place.

The growing burden on HR departments to get strategic - but without taking their attention, resources and expertise away from the day to day demands of people management - means that succession planning can often be overlooked in favour of more pressing issues.

The personal and individual gains of effective succession planning are also ignored when it gets stuck on the 'to do' list or never makes it off the back burner. A constant theme for many HR professionals is how to push HR and its remit up the strategic agenda and seek ways to demonstrate their understanding of overall organisation and business strategy.

Perhaps if HR got a little more savvy, succession planning could be the vehicle to do this?