The client for this HR interim mandate was a medium-sized, international group in the medical technology sector. The company was very tradition-oriented, both in terms of its process structures and its management culture. Driven by the dynamic market and competition, the company management had decided to shape further change with the new HR and Legal Director. This was to include the self-image and image of the HR department both internally and externally. The HR department had previously been seen more as an administrator and "service provider" than as a consultant, partner and expert. For understandable reasons, there were two important premises: no redundancies, but also no additional recruitment. The HR interim manager acts as a consultant in this process.
At the kick-off meeting, the HR employees presented themselves as open-minded and interested. Most of them had understood that HR also had to change in order to help the company continue to be successful and to meet the changing demands on managers, employees and the works council. Of course, there were also fears - and there was some resistance, especially among the HR managers, whose sometimes massive opposition also turned against the new director.
In order to better assess all the uncertainties and concerns in the team, the HR interim manager began the project with extensive face-to-face and telephone semi-structured interviews. As a result, the organizational, functional and personnel weaknesses quickly became clear.
The HR interim manager has extensive experience in organizational development. It was therefore clear that sustainable changes that were accepted by all those affected would only succeed under two conditions: On the one hand, they must be aligned with the established corporate and management culture and, on the other, they must be accepted by those affected. The interim manager based her approach on this. She designed both a change management process and a coaching and consulting process for the HR management team in parallel. The aim was to open up the management team to the changes, allay individual fears or concerns and at the same time involve those responsible from the outset and integrate them into the change process.
In several workshops, the team jointly defined the new HR structure - taking into account the target and actual requirements as well as the potential of all employees. In the periods between the workshops, individual task and communication packages were agreed and implemented in the teams accordingly. The result was a three-stage organizational development program that was to be completed 18 months after the rollout - and was.
The sub-project with the interim manager was successfully concluded with an HR roll-out workshop with all HR employees. As the employees embraced the new organization and their future roles and development opportunities with great enthusiasm, the project was supported by everyone and brought to a smooth conclusion.
