18 Succession Planning Tools and Software [2025 Edition]
According to a SHRM survey, 56% of HR professionals said that their organization didn’t have a succession plan. Only 21% reported having a formal plan, and 24% said their organization had an informal plan. Succession planning tools can help create and execute these plans.
Did you know that every day, about 10,000 people in the U.S. reach retirement age? This development, combined with the continuous need to reskill and upskill employees across all industries, further emphasizes the importance of succession planning and succession planning tools for organizations.
In this article, we discuss 18 succession planning tools and software. We’ll highlight their main features and what’s unique about them to help you find the right tool for your organization.
Contents
What are succession planning tools?
Best succession planning tools & software
1. Simple succession planning template in Excel
2. CEO succession planning template
3. 9 box grid
4. Arcoro
5. Built
6. ClayHR
7. Cornerstone OnDemand
8. Dayforce
9. ELMO Software
10. Empxtrack
11. PageUp Succession Planning
12. PeopleFluent
13. Plum
14. SuccessionNow
15. SumTotal
16. TalentGuard
17. Qooper
18. Workzoom
FAQ
What are succession planning tools?
Succession planning tools are software applications, platforms, or templates designed to help companies identify, prepare, and develop employees who will fill critical roles in the organization in the future.
Put simply, these tools support organizations in their navigating succession planning process, which focuses on:
- Critical roles only: Not every role in the organization is relevant for succession planning.
- Selecting and developing key talent: Companies select their best people to nurture and train them so that they can one day take over when someone else leaves.
- Ensuring continuity: The whole idea behind succession planning is to ensure that when someone in a critical role decides to leave the organization, the position can be filled smoothly by someone ready to take over.
As such, succession planning tools and software assist in the strategic workforce planning process and help organizations minimize disruptions and maintain business continuity.
Best succession planning tools & software
Succession planning tools can range from simple Excel templates for tracking potential candidates to sophisticated platforms with features like AI-driven analytics, competency mapping, and development plans. The right tool depends on the organization’s size, needs, and budget.
We’ll start with free “offline” tools and then look at popular succession planning software solutions.
Please note that this list is compiled based on publicly available information. We have not tried the software solutions ourselves, with the exception of AIHR’s tools.
1. Simple succession planning template in Excel
If your organization is just starting out with succession planning, a simple spreadsheet can be a great way to create a clear overview of key positions and potential successors. This basic template helps you map out essential details and get started. It includes fields like:
- Position for succession
- Current position holder’s name
- Timeline for successor to fill the role
- Key competencies required for the role
- Succession candidates’ names
- Readiness rating for each candidate
- Brief description of each candidate’s development plan
- Performance metrics and KPIs for the succession plan and candidate performance
- Performance monitoring frequency (e.g., monthly, quarterly)
- Contact person (supervisor or manager) to notify if the role becomes suddenly vacant.
It is straightforward and easy to customize, making it ideal for organizations in the early stages of succession planning.
2. CEO succession planning template
A CEO succession planning template serves as a detailed roadmap for the board of directors to ensure smooth leadership continuity. It organizes the process of identifying, evaluating, and preparing candidates to fill the CEO role while factoring in key considerations specific to the organization’s future.
This template helps define the ideal CEO profile based on the organization’s strategic priorities, anticipated challenges, and future goals. A well-structured template also ranks potential candidates—both internal and external—based on readiness and alignment with the company’s needs.
A CEO succession planning template is an indispensable tool for creating alignment among board members by clarifying priorities, expectations, and processes for selecting the next leader.
3. 9 box grid
The 9 box grid is a helpful framework for identifying top employees best suited for succession. This tool evaluates employees based on two key factors: performance and potential, helping you pinpoint your “stars”—those who score high in both areas. These high-potential, high-performing employees are the ones who will drive the future success of your organization.
This tool provides a structured way to assess readiness and suitability for key positions, ensuring that when roles become vacant, there is a strong pipeline of talent ready to step in.
You can download our free 9 box grid template and guide. Fill in employee names and assess each individual’s performance and potential levels. Then, they will be automatically sorted into the right talent segment.
4. Arcoro
Arcoro is an HR software company that provides solutions for construction companies, contractors, municipalities, and manufacturers.
What’s unique: Arcoro highlights its succession planning software’s ability to let companies review employee readiness and performance for promotion with 9 box talent matrices and scorecards. This enables organizations to leverage performance data, development plans, and competencies.
5. Built
Built is a succession planning tool that helps companies create accurate, automatically updated succession plans and receive critical alerts when action is required.
What’s unique: Built’s succession planning software integrates with a company’s Human Resources Information System (HRIS). This means plans get updated automatically when people change roles or leave the organization. The tool also allows for collaborative, real-time access so that key stakeholders and managers can access plans anytime and actively contribute to the process.
6. ClayHR
ClayHR is a company that provides a comprehensive, cloud-based HRM solution that helps mid-sized and large-sized enterprises manage their entire employee life cycle, from onboarding to employee records and from performance management to retention, all in one integrated platform.
What’s unique: “Nurture tomorrow’s leaders with ClayHR’s AI-driven succession planning.” This is the company’s promise to its clients. Something that caught our eye is the tool’s ‘Ask HR’ feature. Next to many other conversational and information retrieval capabilities, this virtual assistant enables employees nearing retirement or transitioning to document and share their vital insights by uploading key documents and knowledge. This, in turn, ensures a seamless knowledge transfer and a smooth, well-prepared start for successors.
7. Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone OnDemand is a cloud-based learning, talent management, and talent experience software provider headquartered in California. Their succession planning tool is designed to help companies ensure they have the right people for key-role continuity and avoid talent vacancy costs by increasing bench strength.
What’s unique: With Cornerstone, you can “Prepare your organization for tomorrow by identifying top talent and creating development paths today.” Their tool, among other things, allows businesses to create succession plans that identify skill gaps and then fill them.
8. Dayforce
Dayforce is a global people platform providing payroll, HR, benefits, talent, and workforce management solutions all in one place.
What’s unique: Dayforce highlights various interesting features on its succession planning page. One is around ‘promotion readiness,’ meaning that the tool allows organizations to clearly identify where employees are in their development path and readiness for promotion, enabling them to keep their top performers happy and boost retention.
9. ELMO Software
ELMO Software is a cloud-based HRIS provider that helps companies automate and streamline HR processes such as payroll, benefits, recruitment, onboarding, and performance management. It’s particularly popular in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.
What’s unique: One of the things that the company highlights is the tool’s ability to easily filter and sort employees for future succession development based on their criticality, readiness, flight risk potential, and performance ratings. ELMO also mentions its ability to cater to every organization’s level of maturity and to scale with the organization as it evolves or needs change.
10. Empxtrack
Empxtrack is a comprehensive HR product that covers an organization’s entire employee life cycle. Its succession planning tool offers a systematic process for identifying key leadership positions in the organization and identifies high-potential employees using 9 or 12 grid matrices.
What’s unique: Empxtrack’s software lets companies make not one but several succession plans for people. This means that they can create a short-, medium-, and long-term succession plan for each critical role and involve multiple stakeholders in the process.
11. PageUp Succession Planning
PageUp offers a complete talent management solution from recruitment marketing to performance management and learning. Their succession planning tool helps companies get to know their people to reduce flight risk and plan ahead.
What’s unique: PageUp’s succession planning software allows organizations to regularly review their talent and calibrate live using the 9 box tool. Companies can use this information to identify and nurture people with the potential and desire to fill roles required now and in the future.
12. PeopleFluent
PeopleFluent is a talent management and learning solutions provider that helps organizations hire, develop, and advance their workforce. Its succession planning software equips companies with a complete, flexible, and functional toolset that gives them what they need to make the right decisions about their organization’s future.
What’s unique: PeopleFluent’s flexible succession planning toolset caters to mid-sized and large companies, giving each type of organization exactly what it needs to make the right decisions for the future.
In a large company, for example, this could mean focusing on leadership vulnerabilities, while in the mid-enterprise segment, it could mean focusing on mentoring and career pathing.
13. Plum
At Plum, they are on a mission to empower organizations to be successful by getting the right people in the right roles. Their solution offers scalable strategic workforce planning and upskilling that prioritizes an outstanding experience for every employee.
What’s unique: Plum distinguishes itself by emphasizing that Industrial/Organizational Psychology and AI power its software. By identifying critical skills such as strategic thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability, the tool gives companies insights they can use to fast-track leadership development and build a resilient team.
14. SuccessionNow
SuccessionNow is a platform that caters to the succession planning needs of organizations of all sizes and provides an easy-to-use solution to the complex problem of leadership transition and replacement.
What’s unique: One thing that immediately caught our interest is that the platform is built by succession planning professionals with over thirty years of experience in the field. Who better to develop a succession planning solution than the people whose job it has been to take care of precisely that: succession planning, right?
15. SumTotal
SumTotal is a talent management and learning software provider. Its succession planning tool makes it possible for organizations to understand skills and competency gaps across their workforce, develop talent pools, and align succession management needs to the goals and strategic objectives of the organization.
What’s unique: Among other features, SumTotal mentions the option to leverage their n-box grid for team visibility. By doing so, companies gain critical insights into readiness and potential, which helps them identify top talent and model succession implications.
16. TalentGuard
TalentGuard is a leading provider of AI-powered workforce intelligence solutions designed to help organizations optimize their talent management processes. Its succession planning software enables companies to determine key roles, identify high-potential employees who can fill those roles, create dedicated talent pools, and accelerate the development of skills required for success.
What’s unique: TalentGuard explicitly mentions the option to create an unlimited number of dedicated talent pools as one of their tool’s key features. They also mention the option for companies to keep their talent pools up-to-date with real-time data on candidate availability, skill levels, and performance metrics.
17. Qooper
Qooper is a company that provides corporations, associations, and universities with employee mentoring and training software. However, the company also is a one-stop-shop for all succession planning initiatives.
What’s unique: Qooper focuses more on executing a company’s succession planning program than the other succession planning software providers mentioned in this article. As such, it brings together learning paths, mentorship and peer learning, workshops, discussions, and learning activities in one simple platform.
A cool feature that caught our eye is the tool’s smart matching algorithm that suggests the best mentorship matches for an organization’s employees.
18. Workzoom
Workzoom provides HR, payroll, workforce, and talent software to help companies automate and consolidate their people management.
What’s unique: Workzoom emphasizes the importance of ‘bringing your succession plans to life.’ To do this, their solution focuses on three things:
- High plan visibility
- Helpful reports and;
- Opportunities for regular communication.
These elements combined ensure that an organization’s leadership better understands the importance of dedicating resources and time to developing future talent.
Before you go
Succession planning is an important yet underused method for companies to ensure their critical roles remain filled and the business can continue as usual.
If you’re looking to get started with or enhance your company’s succession planning efforts, exploring the tools for succession planning listed in this article is an excellent starting point. Based on your company’s size, budget, and (future) needs, you can choose a simple standalone solution or one that is part of a full-suite package.
FAQ
A succession planning tool is a software application, platform, or template that supports organizations in their succession planning process, such as by identifying, developing, or preparing the right succession candidate to replace a leaving leader.
Succession planning software is a type of HR technology that helps companies automate, structure, and streamline their succession planning activities.
An often-used tool in succession planning discussions is the 9 box grid. This matrix segments employees into nine groups based on potential and performance. High-performing employees with a lot of potential are often expected to be future successors.
Learn more
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