Why hire an interim?
In this ultra-competitive job market, candidates are clamouring over each other for executive positions. Recent reports show that both permanent and interim management jobs are being filled as quickly as the vacancies are being created.
Yet there are undercurrents of dissatisfaction bubbling away in some organisations over the hiring of temporary management, with some employees viewing it as the squandering of limited company funds. Employees should have a right to question the spending of company money. Simply put, why would you hire an interim manager over a permanent one?
Actually, there are a myriad of reasons; where do we start? Skills shortages: with a specific area of expertise, interims can satisfy skills shortages immediately without them threatening career paths and aspirations of permanent talent. Many might benefit from training and development at the interim’s side.
Experience: many ‘career interims’ move from business to business administering the same duties, so come pre-trained, if you will. Experience has taught them how best to get the work done so delays and problems can be minimised. Also, they will have built up a nice crop of useful contacts.
Professional detachment: admittedly, some tasks are not pleasant; even the most hardened manager cannot fail to be emotionally effected by redundancies. By no means does this suggest that interims are cold-hearted, they just don’t have the same level of investment in a company; they haven’t spent the last ten years saluting John the security guard or doing the books with Marg in accounts.
Dedication: having the interim focused solely on one specific project leaves other staff free to concentrate on day to day duties. You could say it has work/life balance benefits for existing staff through not increasing their workloads.
Savings: time and money. Usually the main draw of the appointment: using an interim to deliver can not only bring cost savings to an organisation but potentially get the project delivered faster than if it were assigned to a permanent member of staff who has additional work priorities. Of their own ‘name your price’ fees, the appointment is usually pretty short-lived (four to six months on average).
Numbers: hiring an interim is a way around head count restrictions where a business needs to hire but cannot for budget reasons. The interim isn’t on contract and thus doesn’t ‘appear’ on head count reports. Looking at these reasons, it’s no wonder so many people hire interim managers!
773 total views, 4 today