Critical role and succession heatmap
The Critical Role and Succession Heatmap helps you identify and manage workforce risk in your engineering and technical teams. It shows where you are most vulnerable and helps you plan action before vacancies become crises. It is a three-tab workbook: roles overview, succession heatmap, and actions and owners.
Free downloads: Succession heatmap workbook (Excel) and succession heatmap guide (Word).
When to use it
- Annual workforce planning: review succession risk as part of your planning cycle.
- After major organisational change: following restructures, acquisitions or significant departures.
- Before major projects or capital investment: make sure you have the technical capability to deliver.
- When hiring is getting harder: if vacancies are taking too long or you struggle to attract candidates.
Who should complete it
It works best as a collaborative exercise. An HR or people lead brings the workforce planning view and knows the internal development routes. An engineering or operations lead knows the technical requirements, who performs critical functions and what each role means for the business. Your recruitment partner can facilitate, adding market intelligence on how hard each role is to replace and who is available externally.
What you get out of it
- A clear view of your most critical engineering roles and why they matter.
- Identification of succession gaps and single points of failure.
- A prioritised action plan with owners and deadlines.
- Confidence that you are managing workforce risk ahead of departures, not reacting to them.
How to run a 60-minute session
Step 1: List all roles (10 minutes)
On the roles overview tab, list every distinct role in your engineering, technical and specialist teams, including design, project, maintenance and controls engineers, technical managers and team leads, and field service, commissioning and site-based specialists.
Step 2: Score impact and risk (15 minutes)
Score each role from 1 to 5 on three dimensions.
- Business impact (1 low, 5 critical): what happens if the role is vacant, for production, projects and compliance.
- Vacancy risk (1 low, 5 high): how likely the role is to become vacant soon, considering retirement, dissatisfaction, competitor interest and burnout.
- Ease of replacement (1 easy, 5 very hard): how hard it would be to replace the person if they left tomorrow, considering market availability, niche skills and internal bench.
Mark any single point of failure, meaning a role where only one person has the knowledge or capability. The workbook calculates a priority rating: critical where all three scores are 4 or above, high where impact and vacancy risk are both 3 or above, and medium otherwise.
Step 3: Identify critical roles (5 minutes)
Review the priority ratings and focus on roles marked critical or high. These are your most exposed positions.
Step 4: Map internal successors (20 minutes)
On the succession heatmap tab, identify one or two potential internal successors for each critical role and assess their readiness: now, 1 to 2 years, or 3 or more years. Flag where an external hire is likely. Be honest. If nobody is ready, that is exactly what you need to know, and those roles are your highest risk.
Step 5: Agree the top five actions (10 minutes)
On the actions and owners tab, agree concrete actions for your highest-risk roles: development plans for internal successors, external pipelines for roles with no internal cover, knowledge transfer for single points of failure, and retention actions for critical people showing signs of leaving. Assign an owner, a target date and a status to each, and review quarterly.
After the session
Share the completed heatmap with your leadership team so workforce risk is visible, schedule a quarterly review, and use it as the foundation for your 12 to 24 month engineering talent plan.
Want help running it
If you are not sure where to start, or want an experienced facilitator to run the session with your team, book a free 30-minute discovery call. We will talk through your succession risks, identify your most exposed roles and agree a practical next step. You can also email info@yprecruit.co.uk or call 0113 418 0806.