CASE STUDY

Recruiting a General Manager into a tough and underperforming environment. 

The Challenge: the reputation of the business unit and the geographical location.

We were approached by a client that we had worked with before to assist them to recruit a General Manager into one of their high profile sites. The client was international, had a strong worldwide brand, but was losing business in their London regional business. They needed to recruit someone who could build both the business and the team who were demotivated as a result of some three General Managers having come and gone over a two year period.

As a result of the above, the business unit had a poor reputation amongst its competitors. They knew that business was being lost due to poor customer service, and would consider a move as risky in view of the recent history of incumbents. However, the business needed someone who could quickly gain credibility, make a difference and understand the business, and this inevitably implied people from the competitors.

The Approach:

It was decided that we should ignore any preconceptions of what people may think of the business. There was clearly a challenge and we would sell it to people as such. The brand itself was strong and career prospects excellent. The geography was going to be a constraint and it was unlikely that many people would want to relocate, both because of house prices and reputation. Consequently we decided to carry out a comprehensive search but within a geographical area commutable to the client site.

We included all the direct competitors in the search. However we knew that we could not rely on this. Consequently, after discussion with the client, we included other sectors where the processes, client contact and operations were similar, which allowed us to broaden the search considerably. We also concentrated on the smaller companies where the top performers may have concerns over career progression, an area that this client could genuinely offer opportunities.

In addition to this search activity, we used carefully worded and targeted advertising on the internet, and were careful to vary the advertising to both attract people with sector expertise as well as those from outside. Whilst the search was comprehensive, there is always the opportunity to find people who have moved away to a very different sector from advertising, who would not have necessarily have been picked up from the search.

The Process and the Result:

Our early search activity confirmed that there were issues over the business units reputation amongst competitors, and so we concentrated more on related sectors, where we found a more receptive audience who were particularly interested in the brand and overall reputation of the company, and therefore very much saw the role as an exciting challenge. We were very honest about the issues but this only served to enthuse some; there was an element of self-selection going on – if people weren’t excited by the challenge, it was clearly not the right role for them.

We identified a number of people both from the search and advertising who appeared to have the right skill set, and they came from a relatively wide sector background. All, interestingly, lived within commuter distance of the site. We put them through a rigorous interview process, concentrating on gaining evidence in leadership, change management, customer service and tenacity and determination. From these we generated a shortlist of candidates who be believed could rise to the challenge.

As a result, the position was filled with someone who had in fact had some contact with the company as a client and was very keen to become part of the organisation. Importantly, he made a quick impact and the unit saw a very quick improvement in business and morale. In addition, the client created a role for a second of the shortlist candidates on the basis that he would be able to take up a similar roe in a different area very quickly, and they needed to improve the overall calibre of their managers.