Key takeaways
- The first week is about capturing what the person knows and stabilising the team, not about posting the job.
- Interim cover holds the seat for one to three quarters so you can hire well instead of hiring fast.
- Use the gap to decide whether the seat should be rebuilt, split or filled by a different kind of person.
- The interim should leave written systems behind, which is how the next person starts ahead instead of from scratch.
A key manager hands in their notice on a Thursday. By Friday the owner is doing their job and their own, the team is nervous, and the first instinct is to post the role immediately and hire whoever is available within the notice period. That instinct produces the most expensive hire a company makes, because it is made under pressure against a job description written in a hurry.
There is a better sequence, and we run it for owners across British Columbia as interim executives. Capture, cover, redesign, hire. Here is how each stage works.
The first week, capture and steady
Use the notice period for what it is worth. Sit with the departing manager and record, with permission, how they run the week. Which decisions they make, which rules they apply, which customers and suppliers they hold, where the files are, what is half finished. Turn it into a handover document and a list of open items with owners. Most managers will do this well if asked properly and treated decently on the way out.
At the same time, steady the team. Tell them what is happening, who holds the seat in the meantime, and that the weekly meeting and the daily huddle continue unchanged. Uncertainty costs more than the vacancy does.
Cover the seat with an interim
An interim executive holds the seat for a defined period, usually one to three quarters, with real authority and a short list of outcomes. They run the function, keep the numbers on the weekly page, manage the team and fix what the departing manager left undone. They are not a placeholder. Many companies find the function runs better during the interim period because the interim has no history and no favourites.
Our interims arrive with the rest of our team behind them, which matters when the vacant seat is, for example, operations, and the fix needs a scheduling tool rebuilt or a procedure set written. The cost sits within our fractional executive band of $25K to $60K per month depending on the seat and the days, and is set against the cost of a bad permanent hire.
Use the gap to redesign the seat
A departure is the only moment a seat is empty enough to look at honestly. Did the role make sense, or had it grown around one person's habits. Should it be split, for instance into a coordinator and a people manager. Should part of it be automated or outsourced. Does the org chart for the next eighteen months even have this seat in it.
The interim is well placed to answer these questions because they are doing the job and have no stake in how it was done before. By the end of the first month you should have a written description of the seat as it should be, with outcomes and a scorecard, and that is what you hire against.
- List what the departing manager actually did, by hour, for a typical week.
- Mark each item as keep in the seat, move to another seat, automate, outsource or stop.
- Write the seat that remains as outcomes and a scorecard.
- Decide the shape. Full-time hire, internal promotion with support, or a permanent fractional seat.
Hire without the clock running
With the seat covered and redesigned, the hire can take the time it needs. The interim helps run the process, interviews against the scorecard, and in many cases trains the new person for their first month before stepping back. We support the hiring process alongside you, and we are not a licensed recruitment agency. Employment contracts and terms go to your employment lawyer.
Internal promotion deserves a serious look at this point. Someone on the team may be ready with the right support, and the interim can coach them into the seat over a quarter rather than you taking a chance on them cold.
What the interim leaves behind
The test of a good interim is what is on the desk when they leave. Written procedures for the function, a clean weekly page with every number owned, a team that knows the rhythm, open items closed or documented, and a new manager who has already run the meeting a few times with the interim in the room. The next person starts ahead instead of from zero.
The common mistakes are posting the role in the first week, letting the owner absorb the job for six months, and hiring the departing manager's friend because they already know the business. Each one feels faster and costs more.