Understanding succession planning as a combating strategy for turnover intentions

Purpose: Considerable research has linked leaders’ development practices to employee performance, but little research has concentrated on how succession planning minimizes the turnover intentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of succession planning on turnover intentions among banking professionals. Moreover, the authors examine whether succession planning enhances the employee job security and creates career attitude that mitigates the risk of employee turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach: Using the survey method, the authors recruited permanent employees of retail banking and the proposed model and structural relationships were tested via structural equation modeling. Findings: The findings depict that succession planning provides job security and creates positive career attitude which in turn mitigate the turnover intentions among banks employees. Practical implications: The present study helps the bank management to formulate a strategic and proactive succession system based on job security and build a strong career attitude to discourage the turnover intentions among banks employees. Moreover, the outcome supports the management of banks in case of the sudden resignation of a bank employee; they will be in a position to appoint a resourceful employee immediately on the vacant post to provide excellent customer services. Originality/value: The current study successfully developed an empirical relationship between succession planning and turnover intentions which was skipped in the literature on human resource development. Furthermore, this study offers an important mediation mechanism for job security and career attitude for mitigating the turnover intentions among banks employees through succession planning.