Interim Management or Temporary Management

I have a guest article today that was wrote by D. Hill at Intramezzo and im very excited about it! Intramezzo are a group that i have not mention on this site before today. I have however had a link to them on the site for a while. They are specialists in Interim Management Job recruitment senior and board-level, project management, change management and permanent executive recruitment.

Today, rapid change is all around us and is part of life. Industry requires a more highly skilled and adaptable work-force who can bring with them experience and change. As a result, the demand for interim management is growing rapidly on an annual basis. However, in contradiction to this, a recent poll indicates that more than half of CEOs have never used the services of interim managers and there remains a significant amount of confusion about what interim managers are and how they differ from temporary managers.

Temporary Managers
Temporary managers are predominately in between permanent roles and will be interested in opportunities that are likely to stretch them and thus adding weight to their CV that will improve their chances of success within a permanent role next time around. This may result in a higher risk for clients; and a longer time until value starts to be delivered.

Whilst they may be fine working within an industry they have several years experience within, the question remains “how will they fare in an entirely different place without their usual “support systems”?

Let’s rephrase the question to, how credible will they be? Will you be able to trust and rely upon them to represent you appropriately, not only within your business but more importantly to your customers or suppliers? Are their interpersonal skills up to it? Will they deliver the results?

Interim Managers
In contrast to temporary managers, interim managers are senior executive managers who are immediately available. They have become interim managers as a career choice and are therefore independent, highly flexible individuals who run their own companies and operate with professional indemnity insurance. They are un-biased by company politics and must have outstanding communication and interpersonal skills to successfully deliver results in a wide variety of different organisations. Their credibility and technical expertise has to be unquestionable because they’re expected to “hit the deck running” and deliver results not just recommendations. Some say they are senior executives and consultants ‘all rolled into one!’

Since interim managers can cost anywhere between £500 to £1000 per day and interim management assignments can last anytime from three months to two years, clients and interim management service providers alike cannot afford to take risks. In fact, only individuals who have track records that demonstrate they have the ability to thrive in fresh environments and deliver an excellent return on clients’ investments are taken seriously.

Interim Management assignments are therefore more likely to be higher risk / higher value / higher profile roles. For example often organisations utilise interims when they need immediate support for turnarounds or when there is a sudden departure of a key executive; or perhaps to release others for non-routine tasks as the business goes through a period of discontinuity.

Often though, interim managers are brought in because of their track record for delivering improvements in their particular specialist discipline or industry; for example to deliver synergies following an acquisition or merger or to introduce best practise processes and organisational structures.

Women Interim Managers
Traditionally considered a lucrative refuge for older, mostly male executives, interim management is in fact fast becoming the career of choice for female executives. A recent study reports that the percentage of women between 25 and 39 age group going into interim management was four and a half times larger than men of the same age group.

Female interims seem to find it easy to find regular assignments, with 30 per cent more women in work for more than 170 days per annum than their male counterparts. They also enjoyed greater equality of pay than was typically found in the mainstream workplace, with very little variation in hourly rates between the sexes.

The survey shows that the benefits of interim management seem to be very attractive to women. The flexibility and equality of pay add to the attraction of a stimulating and varied career in which executives have a direct impact upon the value of a business.

Asked about barriers to success, almost half of the respondents cited internal politics as their major gripe, followed by the setting of unrealistic goals or timeframes by the companies that employed them.

Interims seemed to adapt to these weaknesses by redefining the briefs on arrival. In fact, the survey revealed that 57 per cent always or often redefined a brief, with just 5 per cent saying they never did so.

Interim Managers, the survey calculated, boosted the UK economy by £6 billion, with more than half of those polled classing their most recent role as transformational, or working to bring about a major change or turnaround within a company.

Just 16 per cent classified their role as “cover” for an existing role.

More than a third of those whose role was transformational unlocked between £1 million and £5 million and 20 per cent unlocked more than £5 million for the company in which they most recently worked. The average assignment cost to a business is £120,000, it added.

Conclusion

Temporary managers may be appropriate for lower risk projects, but there is a big difference between temporary and interim managers.

Interim managers are executive ‘big hitters’ with more women choosing interim management as a career choice. Interim managers will have the necessary track records of delivering results and specializing in high value / high risk assignments.

They are very practical “hands on” “get the job done” style and even though more expensive than temporary managers, for higher profile projects they are a low-risk solution when it comes to implementing change.

 

A job normally disregarded by the man!

Today i have a guest speaker (well writer). Her name is Emma and she has worked in the secretarial industry for a long time. I was speaking to Emma over coffee a few lunches ago and we got talking about this website that i had been doing and she said that she would write me an article for the blog. Of course i agreed and she continued talking about many of the things she has done but not been given credit for and how many of her good friends have had the same.

There seemed to be a moment where i thought that Em had really some really impressive viewpoints to get across and images to portray f how it was to be a secretary, instead she gave me an incredibly interesting article that may at first seem degrading towards the position but i can assure you that the full article is considerate and modest.

Secretary job websites such as www.secretarialcarreers.co.uk contain large amounts of useful information and opportunities for work. However, whilst covering issues from writing the perfect CV to dealing with office romance, they do not tackle one of the most pertinent questions afflicting those in the market for secretarial jobs: the perception that their work is unimportant.

Whilst many people believe it is the bosses who make the difference, it is people such as secretaries and pa’s who keep organisations running effectively.   Many companies would not survive if it weren’t for the highly developed skills of their secretarial workforce.  This is echoed by the high salaries now being offered to those at the top of the profession. 

Therefore, choosing which organisation to bless with your skills is a politically charged decision.  In looking for secretarial or pa jobs, workers have a responsibility to ensure their placements are ethical.

There are several ways in which you can do this, but the most obvious is to research the company you are planning to work for.  The internet makes this research easy and practical for anyone seeking employment. 

For example, would you be happy working for a major arms company, such as BAE Systems or Raytheon?  Companies who are responsible for arming and fuelling conflict worldwide, often arming both sides of warring factions (for example, BAE have armed both India and Pakistan).

Even if you think this is okay on a theoretical basis, it is worth looking at some of the horrific photographs of children who have been attacked by British made weapons.  Look into the eyes of the children and ask yourself whether this is a trade you’d be happy to support?
 
Furthermore, ask yourself if you’d be happy to be presented with pictures of these children on a regular basis if demonstrators besiege your place of work (as happens regularly with many of these companies).  In accepting work for such companies you could be confronted by the morality of what you are doing on a weekly basis.

There are also companies, such as Reed Exhibitions who appear on first glance to  be respectable companies.  Yet, it does not take much digging to discover part of their portfolio is organising the world’s largest arms fair  - an arms fair which has recently been exposed as selling illegal weapons such as land mines.

However, it is not as simple as avoiding the big names.  There are many seemingly innocuous companies who keep these disreputable businesses operational.  For example, companies such as DHL and City Link regularly carry weapons components from arms factories.  It is therefore worth digging deep when investigating any potential employer.

It isn’t enough to say I’m only the secretary. There can be no buck passing.  If you are responsible for keeping a unethical company in business, then you share the blame with the company directors.

Next time you apply for a job, make sure you ask the right questions and do the right research.  Secretarial work is vitally important and it is possible to make a difference.

 So there you have it. Great read hu. Em really knows what she is talking about and she put alot of research into this article alone. Maybe some parts of being a secretary have worn off on her over the years.

Until Next time when i will have a guest author writing an article about Interim Management

.

Sam

 

How to Survive a job Interview!

During my travels around the virtual job recruitment sectors i come across a lot of websites, and that not the first time i have mentioned that here! but low and behold i have found another great website section on one of my favorites (shown in links section). This time I was browsing through the best secretarial jobs site secretarial careers and found this great little section on the right hand side called Podcast & Vodcasts.

In the Pod cast section here you can find great stuff like; How to deal with office romance and How to create the perfect CV (Which i have used personally). My main reason for this post though are the 2 Vodcasts. These are brilliant, there isn’t just the normal stuff people tell you when preparing for job interviews. The well spoken and straight talking lady in the film goes on to tell you the bits that interviewees don’t want you to know. I would seriously recommend that you take 15 minutes to watch one or both of the Vodcasts because it just may help you get the job of your dreams someday.

 

Spiritual enlightenment? Isn’t it over there, by the photocopier?

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once argued that meditation was to be encouraged, because experiencing the temporary annihilation of one’s self might help reconcile a person to the knowledge that he or she will one day die; a fear of which, he believed, can blight a person’s life. Happily, much the same can be said of a career in Admin (that it makes one more accepting of death, I mean; though, come to think of it, pretty much any part of that sentence applies). But a calm acceptance of the inevitable is not the only spiritual boon to be gained from Admin jobs. Not by a long way. Believe me, spiritual enlightenment is right there, in your office, just waiting for you. It might be lying in your in-tray. It might be nestled amongst the Viagra offers in your inbox. Or most likely it’s down the back of the filing cabinet. That’s where things usually are. Bloody wonky drawer. 

What?

OK, so I’m blatantly lying. Admin isn’t the path to spiritual enlightenment. Of course it’s not. At least, not for everyone. If we take a look at the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, however…

Truth No. 1: Life is suffering.
Check. Embark on any one of the myriad secretarial jobs, PA jobs, or sundry other office support roles currently available and a deep and profound understanding of the First Truth is guaranteed to follow (I find it usually take no more than three months. Or fifty paper-jams. Whichever comes first). If you’re looking for the fast-track, though, make sure to take a customer-facing role. Absolute gits, the lot of them.

Truth No. 2: The origin of suffering is attachment.
In an office job, attachment to sunlight, freedom, fresh air, the outside world, your own sanity – all the nice things in life, basically – will only bring misery. Give in to the tedium. Forget what it feels like to think, to imagine, to dream. Embrace those extra pounds you’ve put on from food being the only thing you have to look forward to between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Soon you’ll come to love that tiny unlit cubicle.

Truth No. 3: The cessation of suffering is attainable
OK, we’re going to get a little metaphysical here. I promise it won’t hurt. Quite the opposite, in fact – this is about the cessation of suffering, remember? The Second Truth advocated letting go of the outside world, letting office life become your only reality. Some of you, I realise, may have found the idea a tad dispiriting, but fear not, and here’s the metaphysical bit: office life is just an illusion. That’s right. It’s not real. How could it be? I mean, would you rather believe it’s real? Well, exactly.

Truth No. 4: The Eightfold Path to the cessation of suffering
To elaborate: Right View; Right Intention; Right Speech; Right Action; Right Livelihood; Right Effort; Right Mindfulness; and Right Concentration.

Well, that’s Right Livelihood covered; I think we’ve established at least that much. As for the others, suffice it to say: have you never wondered what exactly the point is of performance reviews and self-evaluations? Yep, that’s right: think of them as a spiritual MOT. A few reincarnations later, and before you know it you’ll be enjoying Nirvana.

So, there you have it; Admin: not soul-destroying at all. Hardly seems possible, does it?

 

Another Sales site with that little bit extra!

After getting a bit interested into those sales teams last night i decided that i would try to find some more. After Careful deliberation and 10 or so Sales Recruitment sites later i have decided that the next to go onto my list of top notch sites is, BMS-UK.com.

They are a Sales site with that little bit extra, having the same type of options as Salestarget but going that step further with the aesthetics of the whole site. This makes a nice change from a lot of the plainer sites out on the web, and the listings are also well presented. The also have a Marketing recruitment section with many more jobs in the marketing industry. These two options together make the site super already

I think its a wonderful site. They also have search for jobs in Australia, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, which would be a great help if you where thinking of moving a bit further afield for your new job.

Overall another top job site!

BMS Sales Recruitment

 

First great site review ive found Salestarget.com

This website among others looks fairly simple at first but shows an excellent collection of sales jobs through the UK. First thing that you would notice is that the site is nice and simply, having a complicated site to navigate can be a pain but brosing this site is quite enjoyable in a strange and worthwhile way.

You will also notice that there is a large amount of jobs available to be browsed straight away. and you can search them by category. All this is very similar to all the other web pages out there that provide a job search but, and theres always a but. The pure simplicity of the site means it just so easy to find and apply for jobs. Theres no crappy sign up before you apply, just pure job search.

Check it out here -

Sales Jobs in UK, Employment and Sales Job Recruitment Vacancies