Succession planning
Management planning is a priority for Swedish Match. Both the Board of Directors and the Group Management Team are involved in the process.
Swedish Match has a well-established management-supply process, which includes 150 people, with the objective being to secure appropriate staffing of senior management and key personnel in order to meet organizational long term requirements. The management planning process starts locally, where the management teams continuously review their needs and where key positions and talents are identified. At Group level, the CEO, the Divisional Presidents, together with representatives from Group Human Resources, review the results and a summary is prepared for the Board.
“This provides us with an overview of the potential represented by the Group’s management personnel, their leadership ability, possible alternative career paths and ideas of who could replace who,” says Nina Hanses, Vice President Management Resources and the person at Group level responsible for management supply and development of leadership skills.
“It is also important to have a parallel, informal process in which managers and other employees can take their own initiatives. There are many career opportunities in a company like Swedish Match. We always have something to offer everyone, which results from our not having such rigid structures.”
The continuation of the management-supply process includes ensuring that talents are provided with interesting duties and that the qualities of each individual are fully utilized. Managers also need to develop their leadership skills, for which we have internal management development programs, for example.
For several years, Swedish Match has focused on securing continuous and open dialog among managers and other employees concerning goals and plans at both a corporate and an individual level. Managers within Swedish Match must act as leaders with the ability to set distinct targets, follow up target achievement and delegate duties and responsibilities to suitable levels of the organization.