"We have no difficulty finding the leaders. They have people following them."

William Gore

The Stopgap Group
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Case study 1 - Transport For London

Business Activity: Public sector organisation overseeing and providing transport services in the Capital, employing around 18,000 people.
Interim Position: Head of Resourcing - London
Author: Stas Chobrzynski

Transport for London runs the Tube (London Underground), Congestion Charging, Taxi and Private Hire Licensing, Street Cameras, Cycle Lanes, Buses and River Transport (amongst other responsibilities). TfL required an interim manager to cover day-to-day activities for the Head of Resourcing, so that he could concentrate upon preparations for the transition to a Single HR Shared Service Centre utilising an e-recruitment package.

Stas Chobrzynski had been registered with Courtenay Interim for a number of years and was introduced to TfL following a briefing meeting with Kate Mansfield.

The duties included managing a team of between 60 and 70 staff, organised in five teams at three separate locations in London. Deliverables included:

  • Producing and implementing a single recruitment plan to deal with approximately 800 one-off and 1,200 high-volume vacancies (around 3,200 vacancies for 2004/05).
  • Planning, managing and motivating the ‘business as usual’ team activities in the run-up to the implementation of a single HR Shared Services Centre, (that would result in a 70% reduction in departmental headcount).
  • Taking a lead role in actions relating to TfL-wide resourcing issues, including strategic Equality & Inclusion, processes and implementation for the HR Shared Service Centre, handover of existing workload to the HR SSC and transfer of services to a new third-party supplier.

The assignment lasted for nine months (May 2004 to February 2005) and ended when the HR SSC went live at the beginning of 2005. The client was pleased that the interim manager was able to ‘hit the ground running’ and operate without needing daily supervision, thus allowing him to concentrate on the HR SSC activities.