Interim Management is the use of senior level professionals with suitable management experience and skills on a fixed term basis to achieve a high impact objective or to fill critical managerial gaps when a permanent employee cannot be found fast enough.

Interim management can be short-term assignments to manage a period of transition, crisis or change within an organization and can incorporate the roles of consultancy and project management, planning and implementing change, so ensuring seamless delivery and full accountability.

Interim Managers are often suitably overqualified for the roles at hand so they bring tremendous experience to address business issues and add value by using their skills and expertise to help deliver an outcome, solution, service or mitigate risk that provides a meaningful ‘Return On Investment’ to a client.

Operate on a freelance or self-employed basis, Interim Managers often work through their own registered companies. They are not temporary employees, but are professionals in business on their own right, with the risks and rewards that comes with running a business. They are responsible for their own arrangements for holiday, pension, health insurance etc, and will normally carry professional indemnity insurance.

The commonly used terms you will come across in the industry are:

• Interim manager / Interim: The individual that will deliver, or is delivering, the services required by a Client.
• Client: The organisation requiring or utilising the Interim management services provided by the Interim manager.
• Assignment: The role / task to be performed by the Interim manager for the Client
• Intermediaries: Organisations that formally or informally act as introducers between the Client and the Interim. They include lawyers, accounting and consulting firms as well as specialist networks like RedBreed.
• Provider: A specialist search and selection agency which acts on behalf of the Client to locate Interims with the appropriate skills and experience to carry out the assignment.
• Candidates: Interims registered with one or more providers, and included in a Provider’s candidate database as potentially able to carry out Interim assignments.