An experienced colleague had resigned from the company in the waste disposal sector, which has 3,500 employees worldwide. It had not yet been possible to fill the position. The interim manager therefore took over the employee's tasks after a two-day handover. This primarily involved the classic tasks of an HR Business Partner, i.e. comprehensive employment law support, handling terminations, advising managers on leadership issues, conducting difficult employee appraisals, negotiating with works councils, etc.
The work covered two sub-companies with a total of around 450 employees at seven locations in Germany and Austria. One of the companies in question had been in the red for many years and was undergoing a restructuring process. Shortly before the start of the interim mandate, the company had completely closed a part of its operations. At the same time, attempts were being made to sell the company.
One of the interim manager's main tasks was to accompany an extensive due diligence process and to compile the necessary information for the potential buyers in terms of personnel. In addition, some ongoing legal proceedings regarding the partial closure had to be accompanied.
After just under 4 months, a successor was found for the position, who was able to take over the role after intensive training.
In addition to the operational work, the interim manager created a basic concept for the introduction of 360° feedback for the top management levels for the entire company. She also worked intensively with two colleagues on a comprehensive concept for job evaluation (grading). The aim was to use clear criteria to assign each job to a level and make this transparent and comparable. On the one hand, salary bands, company car classes and other rights and duties of the job holders were to be linked to this. It was also intended to create the basis for further personnel development measures, such as specialist career paths, a competency model and an appraisal system.
By the end of the interim mandate, the project team had precisely defined the criteria for classification and assigned the top 4 hierarchy levels. A communication concept had also been created and proposals for the order of introduction of the other desired modules had been developed.
