Many companies faced with filling a critical role due to a departure of a key member of their team have successfully used interim, full-time or interim, fractional professionals as a means for “filling the gap”. While this is often successful, there is additional hidden value for using this approach that suggests that the approach should be used in a broader sense by organizations.
There are two key benefits for interim and fractional engagement that go beyond “filling a gap”.
- It enables companies to use a “staged” approach for hiring that can improve results and lower the overall resource model cost. In the first stage a more experienced resource is hired to do the ground work (e.g., assessing the current situation, making necessary changes, and creating a roadmap for execution that will lead to improved performance). In the second stage, after the foundation has been set for the role, a less-experienced, less-costly and execution-minded professional can be hired on a full-time basis. Often, the right person to “fix” a function or process is not the best person to manage it on an on-going basis. Additionally, this staged interim or fractional approach gives organizations the option to evaluate what is really needed from a leadership perspective after the first stage is complete, which leads to better hires.
- Enables companies to “kick the tires” on a potential long-term hire. No matter how good an organization’s interview process is there will always be hiring mistakes. There is no evaluation substitute for having a potential employee actually start doing the job in your organization. Additionally, if it’s a newer role, using an interim or fractional professional will help in better defining the role. Many clients place a potential person in the interim role while starting a full-time search and this is a great approach.
At M&A Executive Search & Consulting we have designed our pricing so clients are cost indifferent about immediate hiring or interim-to-hire so clients can benefit from these hidden values without increasing their talent acquisition cost.
