Human resources succession planning practices in Tanzania: A case of public and private institutions

The aim of this study was to determine human resource succession plan practices among private and public work organizations. The study set three objectives namely determining whether various work organizations have succession plans in place, determining the nature of recruitment practices among work organizations and succession plan related challenges facing work-organizations. Three work organizations were involved in this study involving both private and public institutions. Data was collected from among 101 respondents using a structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed for descriptive involving frequencies and major objectives` findings were analyzed through cross tabulations. Findings show that private firms’ employees were aware of the presence of a written succession plan or presence of a draft succession plan while the public institutions respondents show that there have been no such plans in place. In lieu of the nature of the succession plan in order, there are implications on training and development and practices related to graduate and internship program among sampled firms. From the findings firms with plans had systematic training and development of their employees, and internship and graduate program than those without. However, the nature of human resource succession planning had no influence on how organizations filled various management positions namely the top, middle and operational level positions. These positions were largely filled by sourcing from within the organization than employing from outside save for the operational level positions. A number of challenges are noted in relation to effective implementation of the succession plan. The study recommends that there should be succession plan document for proper human resource development among both private and public institutions.