Financial Considerations of Interim Leadership Engagements

When engaging a healthcare interim executive search firm for the first time, the price may come up as an issue. However, there are significant benefits to working with interim leaders during critical vacancies that far outweigh the financial implications. Today, we will discuss how interim leadership engagements affect a healthcare organization’s finances. If you have more questions or are curious about the process after reading this post, contact us. We can tell you more about the interim healthcare leadership process and how it can be of benefit to your hospital or healthcare organization.

Financial Considerations of Interim Leadership Engagements

Career interim leaders are travel-ready subject matter experts dedicated to interim leadership, both clinical and administrative. Often times, c-suite interims are retired executives who decide to re-enter the field because they have a passion for healthcare. They have already reached the summit of their careers, they have held positions such as CEO or president and are looking for new projects to take on.
At other times, interim leaders are looking for a change in career, for new challenges in their professional path. As professional interim leaders, they can remain in the healthcare field but take on enterprises to challenge their skills and processes.

If you are looking for a skilled healthcare interim leader, working with the leading healthcare interim firms makes sense. Because of the volatile nature of the healthcare industry today, the best healthcare search firms offer interim talent services to complement their more traditional search engagements.

When working with the top healthcare interim firms, you should expect a leadership team that is made up of industry professionals with significant health care and human resources experience that will allow them to evaluate and conduct a deep discovery for each of the prospective interim leaders for your needs. There is a particular subtlety in assessing whether a candidate will be the right fit for a critical vacancy in a healthcare organization. This goes beyond mere reference checking, beyond reviewing career advancement. It takes experience and know-how to understand if an individual will be effective at one organization, but not at another. Working with general/non-specialized interim firms or with more broad healthcare recruiters will most likely not yield the top talent when it comes to a healthcare interim leader.

Now that we have discussed the type of people who act as interim healthcare leaders, it is important to delve into the financial factors repercussions that come from working with interim leaders while waiting to fill a vacancy; after all, healthcare organizations must secure their financial solvency and oftentimes work with limited resources.

Pricing will vary considerably between the many leading healthcare interim talent management firms. Price is affected by the level of the position, geographic location, projects among other variables. It is also affected by the skills, track record, and qualification of the interim talent.

Price will also vary according to the healthcare interim talent firm that is engaged for the project. Cheapest is not always better. Interim healthcare recruiters may price their services lower to ensure that they receive more business, but due to the lengthy and in-depth vetting process that is required to secure the best travel-ready subject matter experts, the initial higher cost of using one of the leading healthcare executive search firms can result in financial savings in the long run.

Healthcare executive search firms that offer their interims strong contracts and support systems will have access to the strongest talent in multiple disciplines of healthcare. Paying healthcare recruiters a lower price, in the beginning, can result in less experienced interims who may not be as effective and may cause financial issues during their engagement. It is important to consider the cost-value relationship when engaging in such an endeavor.

There are a few other areas where interim leaders have positive impacts on the bottom line. For example, interim leaders are oftentimes subcontractors for the healthcare search firms they work with. That means that they are not privy to PTO, benefits, or unemployment benefits from your organization.

Interim leadership engagements come with even more financial advantages. Interim leaders are not bonus-eligible, either for short-term or long-term incentives.  Normally, they are not eligible for stock options; and since they are subcontractors the client does not need to pay payroll taxes. All of these financial factors add up.

Once you have weighed the financial factors and selected a healthcare search firm, it is important that you discuss with them the projects and outcomes that you expect them to achieve during their engagement. Strong interim leaders are not there to simply fill a void but to stabilize an organization during a time of need, identify issues AND come up with solutions that can be implemented to address them. They should also be there to assist with the arrival and transition of the permanent leader once he or she arrives.

Your interim executive or c-suite leader should work to improve the status quo, patient safety, and satisfaction, and to have a positive impact on the finances of the organization. There are even times when interims are engaged not to help during times of vacancy, but when there are systemic issues that need to be addressed by someone from the outside.

If you are currently considering interim leadership engagements, contact us. The team at Summit Talent Group is made up of health care and human resources leaders. Because we come from healthcare, we think like our clients. We understand the nuances of the industry and the qualities that an individual must possess to be successful as an interim leader. If you would like to speak to us in depth about our process, contact us. We look forward to becoming your healthcare search partners.