Maturity
and experience are highly prized by
employers seeking executives for the
short term.
In 1999, Amanda Robertson left her job
as a human resources (HR) director after
20 years in the investment-banking industry.
She wanted to change her lifestyle while
still making use of her business skills,
so she took a six-month assignment with
a travel company to carry out a specific
restructuring and recruitment program.
It was an assignment that led to a new
career as a short-term executive.
Until
recently, for many senior executives
who left work voluntarily or otherwise,
took early retirement or sought alternative
challenges, the outlook for future
employment was bleak. Traditionally,
when companies needed high-level skills
for a defined period, they would have
looked to management consultants to
fill the gap.
But
now there are plenty of opportunities
across all professions for mature
people who have worked at the front
line of industry and have a successful
track record in senior management
roles.
Robertson
says that working as an interim executive
is both enormously challenging and
highly rewarding. ``It has allowed
me to broaden my horizons significantly,"
she says. ``After so many years in
a business focused on multi-million-dollar
deals, it was a significant shift
of emphasis to be in an environment
where people were working on transactions
with $3 margins." But the most
important benefit was the realisation
that her skills were eminently transferable
to other industries.
The
interim executive concept, well established
in Europe and the United States, has
been slower to take off in Australia.
But in July, the Australian Bureau
of Statistics reported that the ratio
of part-time to full-time employment
had reached a historical high of 39.4
per cent, with a strong demand for
interim executives in an uncertain
economic and labour market.
Phil
Tuck, managing director of Interim
Executive Search, has specialised
in this area for many years. He says
that interim executives can be brought
into companies to provide leadership
and guidance in a variety of roles,
such as maintaining ``business as
usual" if a CEO or director leaves
suddenly or takes extended medical
or maternity leave; implementing changes
to management initiatives; directing
or facilitating specific projects;
mentoring new directors; or supplementing
an executive board during corporate
expansion, public flotation, mergers
or acquisitions.
Robertson
believes that flexibility, resilience,
assertiveness and an ability to ``stay
out of the politics" are key
characteristics of a successful interim
executive. ``As an interim HR director,
it was important for me to stay focused
on the strategic role I was hired
to carry out," she says. ``It
would have been so easy to get sucked
into the day-to-day operational issues,
but that's not what I was there to
do."
She says that the most challenging
aspect of life as a short-termer is
the diversity of assignments and having
to adapt quickly: ``You can be quite
a way out of your usual comfort zone
and there are no honeymoon periods
for interims."
Julia
Ross, founder and managing director
of Julia Ross Recruitment, sees the
growing market for interim executives
as benefiting employers and executives,
and believes that career management
and outplacement services are becoming
increasingly effective in upskilling
people for changing workplace needs.
``You
can't beat experience in any aspect
of life," she says.
``Mature
candidates can often bring wide experience
in different areas of expertise, whereas
more recent entrants to the workforce
can sometimes have a narrower field
of focus."
Phil
Tuck says Australian corporations
are turning increasingly to interim
executives to support their organisations
as they respond to worldwide business
trends and the need to maintain a
flexible workforce.
``An
enormous benefit for our clients is
that interim executives are proven,
results-oriented practitioners with
hands-on experience who can hit the
ground running in each new assignment,"
Tuck says.
There
is no doubt in Robertson's mind that
it was working as an interim executive
that gave her the confidence to strike
out on her own. Her company, Capital
Knowledge, provides strategic HR outsourcing
services to selected clients on a
retained basis.
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