Courtenay HR
HR Resourcing
"The time is always right to do right."
The Story of One
This is the story of one Courtenay assignment for one client. We work with so many different organisations, in so many different ways, that no one project can be taken as typical.
Included in this website are more details about the services and sectors in which we offer expert knowledge, from HR search, selection and consulting to specialist recruitment assistance for your own resourcing teams. All of which will tell you what services you can expect as a client of Courtenay HR. But this story will tell you how it feels to be a client of Courtenay HR….
Our selection practice had been working with the client for several years. In fact, our relationship began in the early nineties, when we placed an up-and-coming HR manager named Lesley Klein into the HQ in Reading.
Early in 2004, the client was looking for a new HR Director. Appointments at this level are routinely handled by the Search practice, but the management team were interested in some background work before going to market.
Candidates for all roles at the client organisation are welcomed to a Journey of Discovery in which they are invited to decide whether they are ‘Innovators’, ‘Fighters’, ‘Entertainers’ or ‘story-tellers’. However, in a business where the culture is so inextricably linked to the business approach, it was felt that the company needed to re-define the competencies needed in the top HR job.
So we began with a competency profiling exercise, which explored the special qualities and motivations necessary for a successful HR Director. In fact, Courtenay has advanced expertise in this area, having been the first executive search and selection organisation to develop HR-specific assessment process.
The client was anticipating difficulties in finding one individual who combined the credibility of a commercial heavyweight with an active and demonstrable commitment to human rights, economic sustainability and environmental protection. The context was instructive: while the client was founded on - and famous for - its social responsibility, it was also a pioneer of best business practices in HR, from e-recruitment systems to flexible benefits packages.
Our Beta Mapping process recommended an emphasis on the ‘Innovator’ and ‘Fighter’ aspects of the brand persona. Our experience told us that the apparent dichotomy between business credibility and a belief in social ethics was actually not an obstacle to the right person. The critical factor would be our ability to catch someone at the right stage of their career. Hence the Beta Map results were used to feed into the Search assignment.
The Search team decided to focus on people who had already achieved Director status in business-focused HR. These would be individuals who were still on an upward curve of professional achievement, but for whom quality of life and personal fulfilment were also becoming more of a priority. So the researchers were not looking for people who were ready for their first board-level role, but almost certainly their second. It might well be that, in remuneration terms, the right candidate would be making a level move, but the culture and flexible benefits programme would represent a significant advance in personal terms.
We were the first consultancy in HR to have a specialist research team, and it’s in exactly this kind of situation that they come into their own. Rather than just contact-building and information gathering, they can engage credibly in debate with senior HR professionals. The final shortlist included three HR Directors, with backgrounds including merchant banking, civil engineering and management consulting. Significantly, that short-list was delivered within six weeks, a period that included the Competency Profile as well as the Search itself. The Finance Director, Rachael Flint, compared this very favourably with the six-month recruitment cycle that had become routine for other senior executive roles.
When Mike Brickhill was finally appointed we did a debrief that compared our Beta Map output with his own commentary on where he was at in career terms, and where he wanted to be, immediately prior to the Client opportunity. The overlap, in soft as well as hard criteria, was near perfect.
"The big strength that Courtenay had as far as we were concerned was their ability to read our culture, and understand the importance of our philosophy and ethics to the way we run the business.” Rachael Flint.
"It felt kind of uncanny that there was a job that felt so right for where I was. It could have been made for me, but that’s the art of search, I suppose." Mike Brickhill.
"I think clients stick with Courtenay because they make things happen and deliver results. They don’t over complicate things, they just get the job done." Lesley Klein.
Bums on seats? We don’t think so. And neither do they...