This paper explores two interconnected human resource management topics: the comparative benefits and risks of at-will employment versus due-process employment frameworks, and the design and implementation of succession planning programs. The discussion weighs how formal disciplinary policies and performance appraisal procedures affect organizational liability and employee behavior, noting that poorly implemented formal policies can create greater wrongful termination risk than at-will arrangements. The paper then examines how succession planning serves both employee development and organizational talent identification, emphasizing that the program's value depends entirely on consistent, objective, and well-understood implementation.
Employees are in a much safer position when working under due-process arrangements — with the full benefit of formal performance appraisal and remedial or disciplinary procedures — than in at-will employment circumstances. Organizations are also less likely to encounter liability under due-process frameworks, but only where those policies and procedures are fully complied with and properly implemented. Where an organization maintains formal disciplinary and performance appraisal policies but fails to adhere to them strictly, there is considerably greater liability risk for wrongful termination than exists in a straightforward at-will arrangement.
The proper implementation, interpretation, and application of formal disciplinary policies and procedures is crucial wherever they exist. In fact, the existence of such policies can be potentially far more dangerous to an organization than at-will employment unless a very serious effort is made to ensure that all supervisors and administrators acquire a meaningful degree of expertise in these issues. Where that expertise is achieved, formal disciplinary and termination policies do protect organizations against wrongful termination liability. In principle, the worst possible scenario is one in which formal policies exist but without sufficient training to ensure that they are not violated when they apply.
"At-will employment as a motivator of professional conduct"
For example, personality mismatches among coworkers, or mismatches between individual employees and the broader organizational culture, are generally not sufficient cause for termination in due-process or formal-policy employment situations. However, they may constitute sufficient grounds for termination under at-will employment. This distinction has meaningful implications for how employees navigate workplace relationships and professional conduct.
Effective succession planning must be a continual and ongoing process if it is to achieve its desired objectives. While it is important to conduct annual reviews of the succession plans themselves, infrequent employee reviews may produce a cursory process rather than a genuinely substantive one. More importantly, all employees must believe that they are eligible for fair career development opportunities through fundamentally objective evaluation processes and procedures. Where employees begin to feel that only members of a preferred group are genuinely eligible for advancement, the organization risks losing much of the motivational value that succession planning is designed to provide.
"Dual purposes of succession planning and risks of misuse"
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