Asynchronous and Online Learning

The Office of Public Health Practice has created online learning resources to help support public health professionals excel in their organization and make a real difference in community health outcomes.

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New Training Course — Coming November 2026

Succession Planning

The Succession Planning course introduces the principles and practices of succession planning and show how a proactive approach can strengthen workforce sustainability, support employee development, and ensure continuity of essential public health services during staff transitions.

Succession planning is both a workforce planning and business continuity strategy that helps health departments maintain essential services during staff transitions while preparing employees for future opportunities. It ensures work continues in the event of a staff departure while also providing a way to mitigate workforce shortages.

Succession planning helps prevent workforce gaps and can help health departments create an actionable roadmap for career advancement among all employees. At its core, it identifies the people who have the potential to succeed, then places them in necessary training and mentorship positions, cultivating their leadership skills.

Some of the key advantages include:

• Building workforce sustainability
• Preparing for staff transitions
• Aligning people with organizational needs
• Strengthening recruitment
• Supporting public health accreditation efforts

There are many ways to approach succession planning, any of which would bring benefits. This course is a hybrid framework that integrates the National Institutes for Health (NIH) succession model and a human resources “9-Box Grid” tool into one unified process. It begins with the NIH foundational concepts such as identifying critical positions and defining competency expectations. This ensures fairness, transparency, and consistency. Once position-based risk is clear, we apply the 9-Box Grid to evaluate talent readiness and potential bench strength.

The Six Steps outlined in this course are:

1. Prioritize Critical Positions
2. Define Role Requirements
3. Assess Workforce Talent
4. Identify Successor Candidates
5. Develop Successor Readiness
6. Evaluate and Sustain the Process