One of the leading European providers of business communications services, FTSE200-listed telecommunications company, COLT, instigated a major business transformation in late 2004. Central to this was a significant drive to bed in a new business-operating model, off-shoring substantial elements to India to drive greater revenue growth, a positive cash flow state and, ultimately, increased profitability.

In April this year, Bruce King, managing director of HR at COLT, identified an urgent requirement for a new, senior HR executive to free some of his existing experienced resource to drive the people aspects of transition. With this in mind, he wanted to bring on board an experienced generalist HR director, ideally with a Telco background.

An essential requirement was to find someone who could quickly impact on day-to-day operation of HR delivery within the two major functional units headed by the MD of customer service, networks and operations and the MD of innovation, products and systems. A critical role for the business, the new role would provide HR support to the senior management team of designated business functions and manage HR activity across those functions on a pan-European basis.

It was a tight and very specific brief. COLT needed someone with considerable senior, international experience. In particular, knowledge and experience of working within a highly matrixed environment, change management, the ability to lead and direct provision of HR core services and to influence the thinking and direction of senior operational colleagues in a highly energised and very fast moving environment. When combined with a pragmatic approach, strong business acumen and commercial awareness to enable a business partner approach, COLT was looking for a very specific animal.

In order to fill this key role with the right candidate as quickly as possible, King turned to HR Interims, the dedicated interim division of Digby Morgan which is, in turn, the UK’s leading specialist HR search and selection consultancy.

“We needed to get the best possible candidate on board as quickly as possible so HR Interims recommended that we go down the interim route”, commented Bruce King. “In addition to rapidly finding someone suitable, that would also allow both parties the luxury of deciding whether it would be a relationship that could endure and perhaps become a permanent appointment”.

Working hugely in COLT’s favour was the fact that it already enjoyed a fruitful business relationship with HR Interims. Over the course of the last year or so, HR Interims have placed more than 10 key HR personnel with COLT.

Alistair Cook at HR Interims, said: “The value of the fact that we have been working closely with Bruce and his team at COLT for some time can not be over stated. We understand the company, the nature of its business and, crucially, its culture. This enabled us to very quickly identify the particular individuals that we knew would gel and thrive at COLT”.

The particular insight and client knowledge that HR Interims enjoyed meant that the company was quickly able to recommend an ideal candidate for the role. Mike O’Dell was a highly experienced HR professional with more than 20 years under his belt working in senior European roles with the likes of BT and O2.

Commenting on the opportunity, Mike O’Dell said: “Having left O2 in 2002, where I had been VP HR Europe, and then worked within HR consultancy and executive search for nearly three years, I wanted to move back to a mainstream senior HR role and the nine-month interim opportunity with COLT provided a great route – whilst, simultaneously, presenting me with a great opportunity to ‘test drive’ both the company and the job itself.

“The initial challenges were to manage costs through focussed headcount reduction; implementation of a recruitment managed service provider solution; and hiring key senior team members to refresh bench strength.

“Kicking off in mid April this year, my two executive Business Partners, the MD Customer Service, Networks and Operations and the MD Innovation, Products and Systems, joined within the next three weeks and my immediate priority was to get to know them, their organisations, working style and immediate term plans. COLT is a high energy, ambitious and well-led organisation but, in HR terms, is based on some surprisingly rudimentary systems and processes. Whilst making life quite difficult to deliver high-end HR interventions, it also represents a really exciting challenge and a platform from which to make things better and to really make a difference to both the HR organisation and, most excitingly, the business as a whole.

“Having delivered the bulk of what COLT was asking for within the initial months of the contract, I was then invited to join the team on a permanent basis and, for the reasons I’ve outlined, I was happy to come on board for the longer term to continue to drive change and help deliver the COLT success story.”

Alistair Cook at HR Interims, added: “Somewhere in the region of 40% of the interim positions we fill for clients are to cover a potential permanent role. Increasingly clients such as COLT are using the interim assignment to kill two birds with the one stone - a short term fix is, more often than not, proving to be a long term solution”.

“The interim route is proving highly successful here at COLT”, added Bruce King. “Over the last year or so we have used HR Interims to fill several, key HR positions. The opportunity to evaluate long term talent and potential in senior professionals is invaluable and, ultimately, will help COLT provide a quality service to its customers and shareholders and meet its commercial objectives”.

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