by George Purdy

Your business project may be thrown into disarray if it loses a project manager. This may lead to wasted money, lost time, and an increased number of employees leaving the firm. One way to avoid this is to hire a consultant in the field of interim management. While most companies don’t do this, an interim manager can help your company in several ways.

The interim management consultants are the ones with a great amount of experience, in-depth knowledge of project management and who have scaled the heights in their fields. This assures you that the best person is being hired for your business change projects. Hiring an interim management consultant certified by the Institute for Change Management (ICM), is a great way to ensure you are hiring the best fit for the job.

Secondly, interim management consultants, unlike most traditional management consultants, have specialized training in the management of business change. Traditional project managers are skilled in guiding a project from start to finish, whereas interim management consultants have additional skills and talent in taking an incomplete, floundering project and putting it back on track.

Hiring an interim manager is a proven strategy for success. Interim managers tend to complete projects 25 percent faster than traditional managers and this is supported by a study by the Institute of Project Strategy in Business (IPSB). They were more efficient too and their projects tend to be more likely to meet deadlines: 72 percent completed on time compared to 60 percent of projects that were led by traditional managers.

Interim management can also lead to less employee turnover, which directly correlates with increased profits and happy shareholders. When an interim manager takes over a project, employees will know that it is in good hands and that they will receive the advice and leadership that they require, making them more likely to stay with the firm.

There are many reasons that companies may choose to hire interim managers. High-value projects may be in disarray after the previous manager’s departure, or a manager with a poor track record may have just been terminated. It makes good business sense to hire an interim manager to help complete projects, leading to improved profits and reduced employee turnover.

Businesses often suffer upheaval after losing a project manager. One way to limit the problems is to hire a consultant to serve as an interim manager. Interim management consultants have experience in project management, and they have specialized training in business change projects. They know exactly how to take on a floundering project and put it back on track. An interim manager can also improve the morale of employees working on an abandoned project. Employees working under an interim manager know that they will receive the advice and leadership they require. If you want to raise profits and lower turnover, hiring an interim manager makes good business sense.

George Purdy is a well-known public speaker on interim management and has written several articles and essays on it. For great tips and tricks to boost your knowledge on interim management at site: executive coaches.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons 3.0 license. Photo by flgr.