Short-term senior executives for long-term gains

Employing staff can be likened to a marriage without first going out together.  A lot of trust is put in recruitment processes to select the right person, however it may be set to fail. 

Many recruitment processes focus on finding out whether a candidate fits the needs of the company.  While that is fine, does the company fit the needs of the candidate?  Sure, they have likely read all the marketing spiel, spoken to a few friends and made a judgement on the company culture, but do they understand the work requirements, workload, and company priorities?  My sense is that we wouldn’t get married without a bit more due diligence on both sides, so why do we accept this type of ‘speed dating’ for our income provider/deliverer of business services?  Speed dating which results in a marriage with no ‘shacking up’ in between is risky business!

Temping and contracted staff arrangements allow companies and candidates to explore opportunities to work together well before even contemplating any long-term commitment.  They can date before the ‘go out’, before getting engaged and eventually married.  While many companies utilise this avenue, candidates have tended to be slower on the uptake, or wish to remain free agents thereby withholding their ‘commitment’ to the company.  This isn’t a problem given there was never any expectation other than a casual or time-bound arrangement.  Sometimes things progress, sometimes they don’t – think relationships again.

This type of arrangement isn’t so common for senior executives, however it could be, and one could argue that it should be given there is potentially significantly more risk hiring the wrong senior manager.  The recognised terms for this type of relationship are ‘interim manager’ or ‘transitional executive’.  The beauty of such a relationship is that it can be for a short time, a long time, or a stepping stone to progress to a permanent engagement-cum-marriage.  Worth considering.

Find out more about interim management