Operations Director Recruitment | Collingwood

Summary of Activity

The Position and It’s Challenges

Having successfully secured a flagship, multimillion-pound contract in 2016 with a large city council, our client was looking for an individual to take overall direction of the contract, reporting directly into the board.

This person was to lead the GM and 200 directly employed heads underneath. On the Planned & Capital Works side this individual would directly manage two Contracts Managers, each of whom manage £10m portion of the contract, with around 25 direct and 150-200 subcontracted staff underneath. Additionally, 12 commercial staff reported in.

Aside from the hardened skillset required, selecting the right candidate based against the candidates fit with the wider team proved challenging and was a key area for Collingwood to assess against – there was a reason why this client had an extremely strong employer branding and high retention rate. In the words of their HR leader, “at interview stage we reject more candidates than progress against behaviours and fit”.

Compounding this, the client did not want to gain interest from direct competitors, instead wishing Collingwood to research from sectors who manage large, complex council contracts. This would prove to be a wide-ranging search to include a vast number of companies.

One of the biggest challenges for this person, and another key area for Collingwood’s Head of Construction to assess against was over half the workforce had been tupe’d across from the council. With this came a handful of difficult mid-managers who had disrupted others internally. Firm yet diplomatic leadership skills were required.