"Career Crunch"...the 25 year career vs. the 100-year life, why is your career reaching an impasse just when you feel at the top of your game? How can you be on your way out, when you're still on your way up?

"Even before the Credit Crunch began in 2007, professionals in their mid-late forties were leaving their jobs and setting up as consultants, interims or non-executive directors.

It is the first time I have done a ‘blog’ book review, most of you will receive our monthly book reviews, but I considered this a very timely book, I spend my life talking to clients and candidates, so have a pretty good appreciation of the Interim and Permanent job market and I consider Helen Hallpike a successful business woman who co-founded a travel dot. com and sold the first laptops in the UK, apart from having extensive experience in technology led change, has really hit the nail on the head with this book. I have used some of her text in summary and her web site link is below.

Helen states that, far from successfully pursuing two, three or more sequential careers in one working life, or happily choosing to downscale to a less demanding ‘portfolio career’, as management theory has suggested, in reality the redundant professional cobbles together a role as the ‘odd-job-man’ of the white-collar workforce, constantly pitching for temporary assignments with companies which need experienced experts, but no longer want them permanently on their books. New laws to encourage even longer working lives are up against the new phenomenon of the twenty-five year career.

Across the globe, even in centrally-planned economies such as China, fit and healthy workers in their forties are being unceremoniously booted out by their employers. Commercial and demographic needs are pulling in different directions. In the workplace, specialist training, mostly of younger employees, is displacing generalist experience as the primary qualification for career advancement, and traditional management roles are becoming redundant as corporate hierarchies are flattened and streamlined by a combination of technological advances and global competition. Meanwhile, the workforce is propelled by two powerful demographic trends: firstly, increasing longevity, with older people increasingly able, and needing, to work; and secondly, a bulge of aspirational baby-boomers trying to squeeze into the remaining middle-management positions.

This book is written for businesspeople that are skilled, hard-working and adaptable, and need to earn a regular salary beyond the age of forty. In a global market of decreasing product and industry life cycles, and increasing sources of competition, this book takes a wry, detached look at the global business and demographic forces driving our emerging career patterns, with some pragmatic suggestions for what to do about it.

John Maynard Keynes famously joked about the division in Economics between the long term and the short term: “In the long term, we’re all dead”. The big problem today is - we’re not.

So will your career come to a halt before you do? Read on ...."

Are you an Over-Priced Pete or Jane?

Check him and her out, along with other career-changing concepts:

"Career Crunch!" is a book stuffed with new ideas. Our lives are getting longer, but our careers are getting shorter, and with over 10,000 centenarians already living in the UK today, we are starting to look for ways to extend our working lives and pay our pensions. Illustrated with graphs, diagrams and cartoons, the text uses comparisons from history and quotations from the latest research to analyse how demographic changes are combining with commercial factors to put managers increasingly at risk from redundancy, just when they feel at the top of their game.

This book exposes the ‘Employee life cycle’, which employers assume but never acknowledge. It introduces the ‘Value Gap’ between our salaries, which rise over time, and our employer's estimate of our worth, which does not.

The epitome of this problem is ‘Over-Priced Pete and Jane’, a rather expensive manager who has lost many of his/her hands-on skills and is unwittingly heading for redundancy. And individual career life cycles in an international business context, as entire industries rise, peak and fall in the ruthless global market-place.

We'd like to live longer ourselves, but what about our attitudes to other people’s new longer lives?

They mean dwindling pensions and a growing burden on the young. But the facts and figures are not So, what now? The candidate market falls into two camps currently, those who are innovative and constructive and strive to work in partnership with providers and recruitment intermediaries and those who are inflexible, 'moany and whingy,' blaming everyone but themselves and think the world owes them a living, also being inflexible on day rates/remuneration, not helpful in these times. We all need to draw a line. It's not where you started; it's where you are going that matters! Seize those pivotal moments. There has never been a better time-life's for living to the full and everything is to play for in the New World.

But you could buy the book and decide for yourself?

www.career-crunch.com

www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.com

ISBN 978-1-4457-6176-3

So what's going on? It seems the recession may have encouraged people to jump ship as opposed to clinging onto its railings. Indeed, more than half the employers questioned admitted that recent restructuring and job insecurity had caused people to go.

However, it sounds as though managers could be doing more to stop it. For 38.5% of employers, their 'failure to offer career opportunities and training' contributed to people leaving, while 61.5% admitted that head-hunters and recruitment consultants had worked their black magic in luring people away. Surely if things were being run correctly on the inside, then these calls to go elsewhere wouldn't have quite the same appeal?

The survey also revealed that there are still plenty of opportunities going begging. Some 46% of employers admitted to having vacancies they can't fill. This seems crazy given the above, and the fact that unemployment stands at 2.47million. By way of explanation, 77% of employers blame a lack of specialist skills among candidates. Perhaps what we need is a UK skills star.

But this is good news for Interim Managers because clients are telling us they cannot find the permanent talent, the best are still keeping their heads below the parapet and from past experience there is always a recruitment boom, post every election. We certainly hope that this May it will not be different! So what is the solution? It's obvious - employ more Interim Managers!

Need one? Call 0207 314 2011

Thank you to Management Today, for some inspiration and statistics

As guest speaker, Lord Digby Jones of Birmingham shared his views on the economy, interim management, and what attracted him to become a senior advisor to Harvey Nash Group.

Watch the video below or read his full interview at the end of my blog post.

Interview Write Up

Impact Executives: "Lord Jones, a warm welcome to the Impact Executive's leadership event. We've got over two hundred business leaders and interim managers gathered here in West London to hear you your insight on the business and economy.

Can you very briefly tell me what you will covering this evening?"

Lord Jones: "Yes it's about how businesses, as the economy moves into its recovery stage, can actually take advantage of the recovery and what they should watch for.

And we're not actually on to the summit uplands of economic good fortune. What we're doing as an economy is bubbling along - it's not getting any worse, but you're not going to see unemployment appreciably drop, you're not going to see GDP go up to 2 - 3 %.

This is a year for battening down the hatches and doing what we do well. This will be a year where there will be great calls for working capital and a lot of businesses will think whether they can pull the levers on more investment in kit etc and they've got to watch that they do get the working capital they need.

And of course it's a time for being innovative, it's a time for investing in overseas markets, it's a time for thinking about those ideas and trying to make money out of them.

Probably more than anything else it's a time to carry on training and skilling people. And following what ever date the general election is, it's a time for making sure we get a government of either party, whichever it is, that works with the grain of business and not against it."

Impact Executives: "You've gained a lot of experience of what works within business both through your executive and non executive roles, what advice would you give an interim manager brought in to bring major change within a business right now?"

Lord Jones: "When an interim manager arrives [in a company] of course everybody working there fears the worst - they're human beings, they feel insecure, they feel worried. But although people like good news they actually prefer bad news to no news.

And more than anything else what an interim manager should do is communicate, communicate, communicate and then go and communicate some more.

Keep people informed - even if it's bad news. And at the same time work hard at ensuring that why you've been brought in - which is change -- actually takes place. The forces of conservatism - with a small 'c' - will be everywhere. People don't like change, you don't, I don't, it makes you feel worried, you're used to what you do, you don't like people coming in telling you how to do it differently, "what do they know about my business?"

And so there's a lot of resistance, probably a lot of it unspoken. It is important that you drive change through, be firm to your ideals, set your objectives, make them clearly understood by everybody and then make sure the behaviours of both yourself and others are consistent with the change goal... and communicate why you're doing things [in a way that is] consistent with that change goal.

And that, probably more than anything, is the most important thing. And you can't start that early enough, start it day one and never ever stop it."

Impact Executives: "Why are Interim Managers important right now?"

Lord Jones: "Actually the market at the moment for... interim managers has got to be good as you come out of recession - there's a bit more activity, you want some change, but you are not certain that the market's there ...so you don't really want to go committing big investment in a big ticket manager. To have an interim manager for a short period of time to affect some real serious quick change can be a very, very cost effective solution to an immediate problem."

Impact Executives: "Last year you became senior advisor to the Harvey Nash Group which includes Impact Executives. Can you tell me about what attracted you to Group?"

Lord Jones: "I've known Harvey Nash for many years. When I was at the CBI they were a sponsor of many of the events and they worked with us on producing quality events in various parts of the world.

Both Paul Smith and Albert Ellis, I have known them for many years, I liked what I saw, I felt comfortable and the brand is well known

..As I go around the world working advising various businesses I like those businesses to have a British base, I like them to have a brand that's recognisable and I like them to operate in overseas markets as well.

Of course [Harvey Nash] is a people business and people are kind enough to say that I work well in people businesses and so there was a meeting of both minds and culture, but also I think there was a meeting of brands...

I'm learning all the time. So I hope that I learn and can add a bit to the knowledge bank in myself as well, I hope, to the bottom line of Harvey Nash."

• Slightly fewer assignments and fewer interim managers on assignment
• Less business turnaround and backfill roles, but more corporate restructuring
• There are more 4-6 month assignments and very slightly less 12 months+ assignments
• Daily rates more or less unchanged
• Most assignments are in London and the South East

With the economy in crisis, the pressure is on to over-perform with tighter budgets. Companies need to leverage the talents of declining teams to reshape the role of technology and drive the business out of the recession, according to recent research from Harvey Nash.

The survey (of 1,345 senior IT executives across Europe), revealed the majority of executives have been asked to provide technology innovation despite pressure on budgets.

However, any changes that are introduced need to reduce costs quickly. According to the survey, 88% of UK respondents successfully achieved their technology innovation collaboration activity.

We have seasoned IT Interim Managers, as well as Programme Management Directors and Managers who are involved in some major IT transformations. The interim skill set that they bring to an organisation undergoing corporate restructuring cannot be underestimated.

They can be a highly cost-effective alternative at the present time and there is a very healthy supply of immediately available seasoned IT Interim Managers currently. Should you have a potential opportunity please do give Impact Executives a call on 020 7314 2011 and we will direct you to the most appropriate consultant for your specific sector.

To see the CIO insight (now in its 11th year) in full go to: www.harveynash.com/itlr

In short, I do not think anyone knows, however we do believe that UK plc must pull its finger out now Easter is over, and believe that the redundancies, cost-reductions and drive for operational efficiencies must give way to due diligence of weaker competitors leading to M&A's so necessary for a recovery. It should also lead to a digging into the razed earth for those green shoots? Whilst corporate restructuring will continue for a very long time, the world has changed these past 12 months and all commercial organisations must reappraise their current product and service offerings and ensure they are in keeping with the times in which we now live.

The Public Sector remains a large user of interim management companies and day rates in this sector have now overtaken the commercial sector, despite threats on budgets. Whilst the current incumbent is at Number 10, we cannot see this demand abating.

But I am not and nor are my colleagues, Economists or Clairvoyants, but we have to raise ourselves above the doom and gloom. Interim managers have immense skill and experience to play a key role in the upturn. Corporate memory of the previous downturns is short with many of Generation X and Y er's not having any idea of what to do. So post April it is! All the bad news out, many of the redundancies made. New Financial years and and half way through the year...This could as we expect be the year of the Interim Manager!

But whatever ...do not be fearful of tomorrow, some of the happiest people in the world are those who have the least.

We have mentioned Monty Python previously in the podcasts on career management but "Always look on the bright side of life" has perhaps never been so poignant. Whilst it may be devastating not to have an interim assignment at present and to worry what the future holds, but maybe this is just the right time to reassess what we really value in life and what brings us joy.

Meher Baba, born in 1894 was an Indian mystic and spiritual master. From 1925 to the end of his life, he maintained silence and communicated only by means of a chalkboard. Baba spent long periods in fasting, but would intersperse these with works of charity, mostly caring for lepers and the poor. He was badly injured in two car accidents, yet with detoriating health, he continued to work selflessly until he died in 1969. And what was Baba's favourite mantra? "Don't worry, be happy", the phrase that Bobby McFerrin later took as the title for his number one hit single in 1988.

So we might be facing bleak times but when times are tough, we at Impact Executives know the tremendous talent that we have in our register of over 2,000 of the very best interim managers in Europe and beyond. You collectively bring a smile to our faces and whether you are more in tune with Monty Python, Meher Baba or Bobby McFerrin no matter what the recession throws at you the message is clear...keep smiling!

Thank you to P.Coote for introducing me to Meher Baba.

Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman described it as "a fascinating zeitgeist tool. It's an excellent way of understanding trends, seeing what people are talking about and what's firing their imaginations. It also feeds into our celebrity culture; the nosiness that makes us human. There is always someone out there having a better time than you and you want a bit of it. "

Brent is not alone; Barack Obama has been at it for ages...

Right now it is the place to be, it's got the PR and the momentum but it does not have the revenue model at present and it's purely venture capital funded.

To the uninitiated, messages are known as tweets and people who read your messages are called followers. Then there is the particular Twitter culture and mode of behaviour: sociability is enhanced by retweeting messages you find illuminating by rebroadcasting them to your followers. Among hardcore users, gratuitous self-promotion is frowned upon.

Twitter has stumbled upon a formula that a whole generation of internet start ups has been searching for: a way for people to connect with friends, express themselves and find information that stands a chance of one day becoming as popular as other mass online trends such as blogging and social networking.

Three years old, the Silicon Valley company only has 29 employees whilst the basic service will remain free, business users as on LinkedIn may be charged for extra functions. Meanwhile there is a viral network effect which is giving it great growth. The Twitter phenomenon has much to do with the fundamental simplicity of the idea. Operating at a juncture of blogging, texting and social networking, the service defies easy categorisation. "Because it is undergoing such rapid evolution, it's hard to slap a label on it" says Peter Fenton a partner at Benchmark Capital, who has joined Twitter's board.

Businesses have been keen to tap into a rapidly growing network like Twitter. The fact that users can choose which messages they want to receive could open the way to a new "opt-in" marketing says Bob Pearson of Dell. The computer maker for instance, issues a stream of tweets about new discounts on its products.

In summary Twitter's six secrets of online success:

• Immediacy: Real-time flow of comments and adaptability to mobile handsets makes it more immediate than blogging
  
• Brevity: Limiting messages to 140 characters makes it easier to produce and easier to digest
  
• 'Pull' not 'push': The ability of users to choose whose tweets they follow makes it less random than email
• Searchability: Messages can be searched, making the content more accessible than the comments on a social network
  
• Mixing the public and the personal: A user's personal contacts are on an equal footing with public figures.
• 'Retweeting': By copying and retransmitting messages, users can turn the network into a giant echo chamber.

This past week Twitter has been in the news several times:

• Life or death - A snowboarder was found dead but Twitter had been used in the search and kept searchers up-to-date
• Twitter has been used very effectively to raise money for Comic Relief, after the Twestival and the current hitchhike of Twitchhiker, the TwitterTitters have compiled new book of comedy all this raising well deserved funds for Comic Relief.
• On the commercial side-a US based IT company has developed a network of sensors that measure the amount of moisture in the soil and compares it to the optimum moisture level. This data is sent to a local network. The data is then turned into a text or Twitter message, to tell you when you need to water your plants. So how cool it is that your plants can now Twitter you to tell you they are thirsty!

Give it a go....find out which UK and US politicians use Twitter the most at www.ft.com/twitteringclasses

Here are some well known Twitterers….

• Stephen Fry
  
• Will Carling
• Russell Brand
• Demi Moore
• Chris Moyles
• Britney Spears
• Lance Armstrong
• John Cleese
• Snoop Dogg
• Noel Edmonds
• Bill Gates
• Richard Branson
• Jamie Oliver
• Toby Young
• Boris Johnson

Can interim management professionals afford not to join the Twittering classes?

Inspiration for this blog from the FT, The Observer, Computing and Metro, thank you.

• Matures produce quality - they are not about individual recognition;
• Boomers -  everyone works until all the work is finished -  committed to the team;
• X-er's teams are not defined by proximity - each person has a unique role;
• Generation Y - what will the team do for me?

• For Matures...focus on company history, company credibility, flexible scheduling, mentoring roles, pleasant workplace;

• For Baby Boomers...hard work will pay off, stability to the organisation, teamwork leader position, leadership positions, exposure to senior leadership. Success needs to be visible...plaques and trophies; 

• For X er's...short and long term options, 'seize today', recognise their knowledge of technology, have a backup plan, live for today, but prepare for tomorrow, peer to peer, walk the talk ...esteem is critical, time is equivalent;
  

• For Y's you must be a unique fit for them, peer to peer is very important, spend time answering their questions, and admire them as individuals. 40% of graduates expect to leave their job in the next two years, 91% of graduates say they are ready for work, 56% of employers say no they are not!  Self actualisation is key.

So this may well be the time to take stock and conduct that life audit...factors we were sure of are now becoming uncertain, be it our jobs, our pensions, our houses, our relationships...although I am certainly no expert on the latter three. It is perhaps a great time as the festive break is almost upon us to take time out to do a life audit. Some psychologists say we should do it every seven years as we go through major change in our life cycles-perhaps the seven year itch, others say upheavals in our lives create 'adultscenence.'

This is the best explanation I've found: http://ezinearticles.com/?Mapping-Midlife---Adultescence?&id=197686

It is acknowledged that the older we get, the less certain we are of everything... the days are over when you had one life, one career, one chance .....

But we can all turn upheaval, turmoil and even crisis into positive transition.

Reinvent yourself never before have we had so much opportunity, whatever age, in these challenging times to do just this. I have seen individuals down on their luck in the past find their silver lining and prosper as never before ....

But first and foremost establish....

*What do I need to fix?

Do not expect that light bulb moment..for most of my career I have given myself a career audit every 3 months..but on a more basic level, from the business emails I get on a Sunday afterrnoon or evening. Most of us now prepare for the week at this point. So use this time to plan your goals for the week ahead...

For your life audit reflect on ....

*What are you not being, doing or having that you now want to be, do or have in life?

What's important to you about your work and career?

e.g. stay in Interim Management, perhaps return to a permanent role, explore consultancy?

*What's the first step?

...Going forward once a month set your three top goals for that month

...Each year, write down your your general aims and where you would like to be heading for the next 12 months.

*Finally...

Think about those facets of your personality that seem to have withered away, and of the activities that used to make you feel passionate. Imagine how you would feel if you could express those aspects again and has anything taken their place?

Next journal I'm back to mainstream advice but for the moment I'll go and lay down on the psychiatry couch or should that be my casting coach? Meanwhile enjoy the journey....

For more career advice, listen the Harvey Nash podcasts

For those that receive the hard copy of our Business Review you will see that the thrust was all about how to make a profit from the downturn. Read the online version.

For Interim Managers you should be seeing the glass overflowing! As well as thiving in the good times we see opportunity increase in the bad times...but it is all about re-positioning yourself to take advantage. I am constantly asked what the market is like by every Interim Manager I speak to...my reply is that we are seeing more opportunity than this time last year, there is no downward pressure on day rates, assignments for us are not getting shorter, there is no one sector that is overriding others in opportunity. In terms of function, as one would expect there is slight increased demand for Finance, HR and perhaps IT Programme Managers/Directors involved in streamlining and outsourcing. These roles could see an increase in day rates as demand increases, otherwise it is business as usual.

There is however more 'window shopping' or 'show casing' where clients are exploring the prospect of utilising an Interim Manager but then feel obliged in this climate to appoint internally..what we call 'the Internal Solution'...what Interim Managers are referring to as 'wild goose chases.' This must be expected so you need to be juggling more potential opportunities. As far as Interim Managers themselves are concerned, the good will prosper and thrive but inevitably there are a few bad eggs within the IM community who perhaps in desperation start behaving unethically in their relationship with the provider community and also clients...a word of caution, it is a very small world and all the top providers talk to one another.

Looking beyond this opportunity of downturn, what are the prospects like going forward...well a new report from KPMG this week, accessing previously unpublished data from the United Nations Population Division, shows that the UK and other developed countries such as the USA, those in Western Europe and Australia face a slow-down in the supply of both skilled and unskilled labour in the next few years if there is not a significant increase in the immigration intake.

KPMG believe the labour crunch will arrive as Baby Boomers (born 1946-1961) exit the workforce, and are not replaced in sufficient numbers by Generation Ys (born 1976-1991) and Millenniums (born 1991-2006), leading to a 'demographic faultline' which will impact negatively on the supply of labour and talent. As a result, there will need to be a much greater flow of labour (in the form of migrants and interim/temporary workers) between countries, and companies will need to adjust their resourcing and mobility strategies accordingly.

Given these factors, companies need to increase the flexibility and required mobility of their workforce, and to ensure that executives have the skills and international experience. All good news. The CBI is predicting big increases in the use of interim managers and flexible workers. In a survey in 2007, in 500 firms who between them employ 1.1 million staff at any time, 3% of employees were of an interim/temporary nature. This peaked to 7% in utilities and 5% in manufacturing.

So I hear you say great, so what can I do to maximise my own opportunity in this increased IM market of opportunity?

The last Ipsos IMA Mori audit, based upon 28 members though slightly distorted by large one function, high volume-lower level providers indicates:

• Increase for Programme and Project Management
• Increase in opportunity in Manufacturing and Business Services
• Reason for assignment cited most often..'Business Improvement'
• Length of assignment for Impact Executives is approx 8 months though we have had several complete recently who had been in place for 5/6 years! For IMA members the average is 134 billable days
• Average day rate is up, the highest since the survey began….all good news

Whilst we are seeing assignments driven by growth and expansion, the opportunity will be in business process re-engineering (BPR), corporate restructuring, integration, consolidation, re-alignment, and streamlining.

One of our competitors and also the IMA Interim Manager 'induction day organisation' advise you should put a block of words at the bottom of your CV to be picked up in providers' database searches. Whilst we do not advise doing this, it is very important for you to seed your CV with the words that clients are likely to be seeking if you have the experience, thereby increasing the number of opportunities you are approached about - simple - but very few Interim Managers stand back and tweak their CV every few months in line with market needs.

Thanks for some inspiration from KPMG for this blog - The Global Skills Convergence - The Labour Crunch. The report finds that in contrast much of the developing world, including some Arab and Latino nations as well as India, continues to offer rising pools of talent. In China, however, the faultline will apply from the middle of the next decade, as the application of their one-child policy in the mid-1970s will impact labour markets precisely 40 years later. The report poses the question whether this could be the issue that knocks China off its current growth trajectory?

The report argues that in the 21st century labour and talent will increasingly be able to flow seamlessly across the globe. This concept of the free-flow of elements was first put forward by Thomas Friedman in his 2005 book The World is Flat. KPMG's report extends the concept from capital, technology and information to include labour and talent too.

Bernard Salt, a Partner with KPMG in Australia and primary author of the report, said, "Without a surge in the annual intake of working-age migrants there will be a slow-down, if not a contraction, in the pool from which the labour force is drawn at the end of this decade in the US and by the middle of the next decade in the UK and many other developed markets. This will have a number of implications for corporates. One of these will be that, over time, large multi-national corporations will increasingly expand their head offices out of the traditional western headquarters and into the new territories of the developing world. We are going to see a change in the landscape over the course of the next few decades."

The last one that we published...

What makes Ego our greatest asset (or most expensive liability?)

In these challenging times your ego could be one of the tools you can use to help you power through or one that stops you.

In their book Egonomics - what makes ego our greatest asset (or most expensive liability) David Marcum and Steven Smith address the delicate and subjective nature of ego.

“Approximately 63% of business people say ego negatively impacts work performance on an hourly or daily basis while an additional approx. 31% say it happens weekly…”

Surprising as it may sound, many people do not have enough ego, and that leads to insecurity and apathy that paralyse cultures and leaders…”

“The crucial point is when ego is not balanced it doesn’t turn our strengths into polar opposites into close counterfeits. We might lose our lives when we lose control of ego but we can lose a lot: trust, respect, relationships, influence, talent, careers, clients, and market share and occasionally we might let ego weaken our talents despite our qualifications, expertise, charisma, track record or remarkable ability…”

Stephen R. Covey, author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People states “What a brilliant and vitally important book! So true and so pragmatically necessary”

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, PhD, Professor Harvard Business School: “How very interesting and unique approach to helping people learn to steer their behaviour more productively in the workplace. It is certain to be widely used…”

Read the full book review.

Read previous book reviews.

If you would like to receive them in the future, drop an email to:yagmur.hayta@impactexecutives.com

A lot has changed since the last downturn, there are now very few organisations either in the private or public sector who have not seen the excellent value that Interim Managers can bring to the party in good, and of course, bad times. It is ironic, since recruitment is generally a very good barometer for the economy as a whole, that our parent company Harvey Nash plc is prospering globally across all recruitment streams, be it Executive Search, Contingent, Permanent and Contract and this very much includes our US operations. What organisations are recognising is the value of having the right calibre of manager/employee in place, there is movement/churn but this is a positive thing - in the City we have clear evidence that the Investment Banks might be exiting people out the front door, but there are interim managers and contractors being brought in through the back door. At Impact Executives we continue to trade above last year and as opposed to only certain sectors hiring, we are continuing to see widespread use of interim managers to good effect, across both the Private and Public Sectors. I find it particularly interesting that the Public Sector values interim managers so much that day rates, as evidenced by the IMA Mori research across approx 29 providers, shows parity in day rates with the Private Sector and in some cases, these are even higher in the Public Sector.

When I attended the TMA (Turnaround Management Association Conference) at the tail end of of last year, the specialist Turnaround Interim Managers were anticipating the prospect of significant turnaround work and whilst this will come particularly from the Private Equity community, all this work has not yet materialised... Over 6 months in, we are not seeing evidence of this...positive realignment and restructuring yes, but we are also seeing much positive growth still, despite Mervyn King’s gloom and doom, coupled with the negative media, we are talking ourselves into something that is not as bad as it appears to be - UK plc is not as broke as the media make out. In my office which happens to be our global HQ, last week I did a representative poll across all our businesses and every consultant is working flat out on assignments and whilst there are a few extra hoops to go through with clients, and maybe the extra interview in the process, we remain very positive across the global piste...

So for Interim Managers within this negativity of the nation, there are opportunities - in the CBI/KPMG report published 19 June 'as much as 72% of employers complain that they are unable to fill certain skilled job vacancies. So on average, one in six Interim roles are backfill and compared to a couple of years ago, organisations now rarely use interim managers to just manage the status quo.

The good news is that the number of interim assignments continue to rise, approximately a staggering 8% per quarter with roughly seven out of ten assignments being in the Private Sector.

In the Private Sector Banking and Finance continue to have the largest number of assignments, with manufacturing following close behind.

In the Public Sector local government remains the largest user, followed by Central Government and Health.

Three out of Ten Interim Executives were hired to carry out special projects, followed by HR and Finance roles.

Programme and Project Management continue to be the most popular reason for hiring an interim manager, with over 2 in 5 being used in this capacity, then followed by Backfill or Gap Management, followed by Business Improvement and Change/Transition Management.

For IMA members the average length of assignment is running at approximately 130 billable days.

You may then say ‘evidence this boom in the use of Interim Managers’ - well, I interview and speak to many very talented interim managers on a monthly basis and if last month is anything to go by, they are all very busy and receiving a lot of calls about prospective roles. Whilst there might be a little more show casing by clients...it is pretty bouyant out there - so I am convinced that interim managers will be Kings and Queens (25% of IM's being placed are consistently female) over the next few years!

The views expressed in this blog are personal to Clive Sexton and are not necessarily representative of either Impact Executives Ltd or Harvey Nash plc ...with reference and thanks to the CBI/KPMG Survey 19 June 2008 and the IMA Mori Survey Results from approx 29 members.