The First Step – Selecting the right interim manager for your company

One of the first and most important things is to ensure that you get the right interim manager for your job. As mostly interim managers are brought into the firm for a temporary replacement or to bring in certain changes in the organization, you need to be very clear in your job profile for the interim manager.

Answer questions such as :

What is the main objective of the interim manager? Can I define his areas of responsibility clearly or not ? If yes, what are they ? If no, how will I determine whether he has performed the job well or not ?

What kind of a team will he/she need to fulfill his job? What is the level of cooperation he will need from the other employees ? Does he need full disclosure or only product specifications ?

What relevant past experience do I need in my interim manager – do his interpersonal skills need to be stronger or his technical know-how ?

What information do I need to give the interim manager so that he can perform his activities well ? Once you have developed your job profile, choosing the best interim manager for the job will become much more defined and objective in nature.

The Second Step – Proper communication of the job to the Interim Manager

After this, the next important thing is to communicate these objectives to the selected interim manager as soon as he enters the firm. What mistakes companies generally make is that they are unable to tell the interim manager their needs completely, thus resulting in dissatisfactory work.

Remember that even though the interim manager is adept at adjusting to new environments, he has come into the firm to complete a specific job. And it is your responsibility to help him to do so by providing him all the information that he needs. You also need to give him employee co-operation and facilitate quick decision making, as time is a critical factor. This will make his job easier and he will be able to achieve his objectives fully.

In addition to the above, it is very important that the interim manager understands the business issues that are involved and can give proper advise to the firm accordingly. For example, if the interim manager has to work with a senior finance officer, and bring about changes in the financial operations of the firm, then he must have the soft skills to handle the situation properly. So all these issues need to be explained to the interim manager as early as possible.

The Third Step – Monitor the job while the Interim Manager is at work

Now that you have selected the best interim manager for your job and have also explained the job profile clearly to him, the next step is to give him support and advice while he is performing the job. It happens in certain companies that the decision-making hierarchy is so tall, that most of the time gets wasted in getting a ‘yes’ for small things. So the client also needs to give the interim manager the independence of taking certain decisions and giving him the proper authority to do so.

But while giving the interim manager this freedom, it is important to note whether the interim manager has been employed as a stopgap arrangement or not. If this is so, then it is always better to wait for your old employee to come back and then implement any changes recommended by the interim manager. Otherwise, you might antagonize your existing employees and make them feel less important.

But if the interim manager has been employed for a business turnaround, then it would be better that all the recommended changes are implemented as quickly as possible. However, if these changes are too radical for the firm, then they must be fully discussed before accepting or rejecting them, as these might be the root cause of the current business
situation.

The Fourth Step – Review the results

After the job has been completed, it is very important to review the results. This will enable you to understand any mistakes that you might have made and to improvise in the future as a client. This task also brings in objectivity to the job. Permanent employees are able to view the changes more objectively and are thus open to accepting them faster.

For example, when an aircraft making company needed to introduce a ‘work booking’ system, wherein the productivity and the time taken to perform every task was to be monitored, employees were distrustful of this new system. The aim was to reduce bottlenecks in the operative system but employees felt that it was a management tactic to detect redundancy in the firm.

Thus, the management decided to get an interim manager to help resolve the problem. The results were startling. Since the management was very transparent and clear about what they needed, they did their homework well. They went through thousands of resumes before finally choosing the interim manager that they wanted.

As a result of this exercise, the interim manager was so good with his communication with the employees that he was able to introduce the work-booking system in the firm. In addition to this, he was also able to get the employees to forego older outmoded agreements and agree to new ones.

Conclusion

To conclude, we now understand the success of an interim manager in any organization depends on both the parties – the client and the interim manager. Thus it is very important for firms to not only choose the right interim manager but also work with him fully in order to gain the maximum benefit from his tenure. This is only possible when the client is clear about his needs and is able to communicate them well to the interim manager.

- Anna Fedorova is the CEO of InterimManagement.com