US
Change management is a hot area of recruitment , which is disproportionately reliant on a large number of skilled, and expensive, contractors. But are they all up to the job?
In the post-crisis world, regulatory pressures are driving business transformation initiatives within various areas of banks in the UK – finance, treasury, technology, operations and risk are all being shaken up.
Recent research by recruiters Ambition pointed to how half of the banks it surveyed had at least 50% of change staff as contractors. A roundtable session arranged by them, in conjunction with AB Associates, which featured representatives from Barclays, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Canada, Santander and UBS, revealed that in some cases the split is 60-40 weighed towards contract.
Contractors are expensive. If you’re an experienced change manager working in a permanent position, salaries are around 80-90k, whereas contractors can earn between 650-800 a day. Assuming an average of 48 five-day weeks a year, this is 156-192k annualised.
If banks are paying such a premium, they expect quality contractors, able to hit the ground running and take charge of business transformation projects. This isn’t always the case – a straw poll of the participants at Ambition’s roundtable revealed that around 10% of contractor placements don’t work out.
“A lot of people tailor their CVs for the roles we have, but when it comes to taking up the job we find they’re light on experience,” says one change manager at an investment bank. “The rates are so high currently, that a lot of junior guys are attracted to the roles. Unfortunately, they often require a lot of guidance and training.”
Training and development is something usually reserved for permanent staff; the logic being that it’s an investment that will pay off down the line. By training contractors, the bank equips them with a new set of skills and experience, only for them to leave when the contract ends.
Not surprisingly, more banks are trying to encourage change management contractors to take up permanent roles. Ambition’s research suggests that 57% of contractors would turn to a permanent role for personal development.
The question is, though, which type of contractors are up for taking permanent roles. Some were forced to take the contract route after losing their jobs during the financial crisis, and could be lured back to the security of a permanent role. However, the battle-hardened change managers have no desire to walk away from lucrative contractor positions.
As a humble BA I found I could up my rates by calling myself a change manager since all projects involved changing something. I soon found myself in a netherworld of big 4 types who couldn’t believe they had managed to get jobs in real live investments banks and confused diagrams with triangles (and most importantly, arrows whirling around the triangle) with delivering a system on time, on budget, on scope etc. Sadly the chartweilders seem to go down a storm with senior types as they give the impression of somethign being produced.
My spirit was broken at a Scottish bank where a recently drafted in change manager (6 Sigma type from the icky world of manufacturing) hid from the rest of the team for 5 months working on the mysterious ‘phase 2 plan’, a week before it was due to kick off asked everyone to send in the existing phase 2 plan, then proceeded to reword it and present it back to the team as her own genius. One member of the team has started working from home. In Germany.
Quite frustrating to read this after having been a change manager for 15 years. What is now labelled change management is basically glorified project management. A true change management role involves looking at all systems, processes, people and culture and seeking to add value by aligning all four either for operational or service/product improvement. The skill set required here is distinct from Project managers, BAs, six sigma process engineers, yet all three now seem to be considered “change managers”. Implementing the change is distinct from identifying the change required and managing it through the organisation. Unfortunately it does lend itself to contract work as it requires best in class knowledge and understanding which you can only gather by working in multiple institutions. It also is generally not a popular role and you will invariably alienate yourself within the organisation somehow by being the one who think’s outside the box. So caution is required in defining the role and identfiying the right skill set, contractor is also probably the best way to go to get the breadth of experience
I speculate that if all the change managers in the world were shipped off to a desert island (preferably on with no food or water) never to return then it would make no difference whatsover to the performance of companies around the world, other than saving a fortune on consultancy fees. Likewise you could do the same with all the lawyers and our old pals the recruitment agents. However that desert island would become hell on earth.
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It is 60/40 contractors because “change” doesn’t go on forever.
If 10% of contractors don’t work out then it is alright because there really isn’t the large up front payment and time required to hire a permanent. Why would you want permanent change manager when their role is really to “change something to keep myself in a job”.
Regarding people changing their title to “change manager” to make more money and have no idea what they are doing… bad karma.
“Why would you want permanent change manager ”
Permanent revolution, comrade, permanent revolution. Every new manager has a great idea that needs implemented. And I’ll be at the barricades. On a day rate.