Our guest blogger is Andrew Thoseby of 1st Executive Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Australia. 1st Executive is a boutique executive search, executive recruitment, interim executive and advisory firm providing custom designed people solutions for clients across a broad spectrum of industries on a local, regional, national and international basis. The firm’s recruiting activities are focused on executive, professional, technical and managerial placement for its clients. 1st Executive includes a growing interim management service in its business mix and has successfully placed interim CEOs, CFOs, sales and operational executives. Andrew is currently a member of the NPAworldwide Board of Directors.
Recruiters the world over have known about temporary staffing and contractors for many years. It is often said that a recruitment business is almost impossible to sell as a going concern unless it has regular income from temporary staffing. Around the world, this approach has received the attention of regulators in many different ways.
This has included imposing potential tax burdens for temporary employees on the recruiters themselves in the UK, requirements for letters of credit in Canada. It includes legislating for “labour hire” licenses by different government jurisdictions in Australia. In that situation any recruiter with a national footprint needs to apply for and secure multiple licenses. There have also been union driven attempts to require any temporary employee to be offered permanent employment after a defined period of time regardless of their own personal wishes. The traditional scope of temporary staffing has been threatened in many ways in many markets.
However, interim executives find themselves in a unique position.
Interim management as a discipline was initially established in western Europe some time ago. At the time, it was generally in response to overbearing employment law which made it very difficult to hire senior talent for a limited period of time and know that they would move onto something else afterwards.
In most marketplaces, true interim management exists outside of the traditional boundaries of temporary staffing, largely because of the seniority or specialised nature of the executive. In essence, the interim executive is seen to be sophisticated and has earning potential that clearly indicates they could not reasonably be seen to be exploited by an organisation in any way.
As a discipline, it has gradually spread around the world with established markets in most of Europe, into Southeast Asia, North America and more recently into Australia and New Zealand.
Up to now, it has been a highly specialised service, typically targeting experienced senior executives who are close to retirement to fulfil a role temporarily. Many of the early placements were simply bridging the gap because of long service leave, maternity leave or some other enforced absence.
Quite often, its progress as a discipline could be inhibited by tax regimes, an inability to secure corporate health insurance or the capacity to maintain superannuation or retirement funds within existing legal structures.
The skill set and experience that senior interim managers bring to an organisation has seen the focus shift to it being a situational relationship between the executive, the recruiter and the organisation. Now, for example, an interim managing director or CEO could be appointed to oversee restructure, turnaround or even post-merger project management. The requirement is not just that such an executive has the skills and experience to run a business but that they have a track record in the specific change scenario presented to the organisation.
Along with this, there is a realisation that if the organisation was to pass such responsibility to an existing executive team, then the chances of their success would inevitably be compromised by their ongoing accountability for the existing management portfolio.
The Pandemic Driven Boom
Interim management received what was perhaps an unexpected boost from changes in the way that people work as a consequence of the pandemic and associated lockdowns.
Increasingly, senior executives living highly pressured corporate lives questioned their work life balance and their overall quality of life. Forced into staying at home, spending more time with family and close friends they have begun to choose more flexible working relationships.
At 1st Executive, we built a database of hundreds of senior executives for whom 6-to-12-month contracts or 3–4-day weeks, followed by a break suddenly became a very attractive proposition. Many now see it as a preferred way of working, some still see it as a steppingstone into a permanent role while others believe it will help bridge the gap between management career and a consulting career. The interim manager consults, but they still manage. Organisations are more likely to choose the executive committed to interim management for an interim role.
It is also clear that the mobility of senior talent, combined with a capacity to “work from anywhere,” is further strengthened through the will of this group to work in a different way. NPAworldwide members are very well equipped to support their clients’ excursions into overseas markets with interim executives through other members across state, regional and international borders.
So, what about the “employing” organisation?
The first thing that they have to get their head around, is that this is not an employment relationship. It is, in fact, more of a consulting scenario but it is very hands-on. It is highly unlikely that the majority of organisations who are insisting that all of their staff come back to the office, all of the time, as soon as possible, are likely to embrace such a new way of working.
Enlightened organisations understand that significant change can require a very special skill set. They also understand that once the change has been successfully implemented, they may not need such a special skill set to continue with business as usual. In that regard, this is a very happy coexistence. The major change gets implemented and the executive team can integrate it into their ongoing work as required. The interim manager finds another challenge.
The slow and steady rise of interim management is over, it is now becoming a boom and it’s global.