A tech company was scaling fast as part of a global private equity firm’s portfolio. When the organization’s acting CHRO decided to exit the company, they were left with a gap in the crucial role when the department itself was in its infancy. None of the current team members had the deep experience required for the position, and the CEO was determined to take her time to make the right hire. They immediately sought out Inspire as an interim solution, to place a senior HR leader into the role while they recruited for a full-time hire.

Inspire Expert as Interim CHRO

We knew we had the perfect fit for this role: an experienced HRBP and former VP from a Fortune 100 company, particularly fit to lead inclusively having held multiple global HR leadership roles.

Our Expert parachuted in and got right to work with an assessment and key actions designed to:

• Ensure the HR team was staffed with the right talent.
  Build metrics to determine the department’s impact on business objectives.
• Strengthen culture + engagement to understand and act on drivers of turnover and reasons for dissatisfaction.
• Increase understanding of the competitive talent environment and design a recruitment process that is transparent, efficient, and consistent.
• Strategize with senior leaders for the most effective organizational design and talent planning to support future goals, including a rigorous process for succession planning.
• Assess performance management processes to ensure a connection between goals, outcomes and total rewards.

Outcomes

The Inspire Expert served as Interim CHRO for 18 months.

During this time, Inspire was proud to ensure business continuity while upskilling the entire team, leaving them well-positioned for success in the future. Specifically:

• Senior leadership team incorporated a C-suite HR leader, ensuring HR continuously supported the growth and development goals of the organization.
• Managers developed necessary leadership skills following a 2-day leadership workshop led by Inspire Expert, focusing on performance management, employee engagement, culture, and operations.
• Elevated performance management process, including review of CEO’s performance.
• Smooth transition to work-from-home environment and voluntary in-office working throughout the pandemic.
• Effectively reduced staff at beginning of pandemic with clear guidelines to identify 10 under-performing employees.
• Optimized career management with the introduction of a new program that includes career mapping, professional tools, and training.
• Revised salary ranges following thorough compensation benchmarking study.

A lasting impact

When we began this engagement, the company was more than 20 years old, but formal HR was only just being introduced. There was a positive culture and strong employee engagement in place and there was a concern by some leaders that HR could actually have a negative impact instead of a positive one.

By assuming a dual role as expert and educator, Inspire was able to teach the senior leadership team the strategic role HR can play to help an organization reach its business goals and how to recognize when a person is not a good fit – positioning the team for an elevated experience in talent management moving forward.