European HR Director – France Based – Manufacturing
Newly established European HR Director role to join a company operating in a highly regulated environment, and a history of growth through acquisitions. Fluent English and French language skills were required along with extensive social plan and union experience. Sustainable change management skills, advanced commercial acumen and a continuous improvement mindset were also vital.
Remit challenges – With recurring revenue losses the company had a new president mandated with a turnaround agenda inclusive of stabilising workforce attendance and productivity, improving production quality and supply chain reliability, and quickly making the company profitable again. This manufacturing company historically had a transactional approach to HR, so required a new HR leader with a different mindset, skillset, and approach to be part of the new leadership team. Immediate priorities for this HR leader included:
delivering an unpopular social plan across France with a real possibility of needing to effect site closures to reduce costs
directly advising and aiding management teams and workforces to improve standards and efficiency while reducing waste within their sites
urgent review of the HR function, rapidly assessing capability and structure of the team; and improving proactively of support to establish credibility and authentic business partnerships
ensuring HR interventions were relevant, easy to implement and delivering immediate commercial results
Hiring Challenges – With so much change and evolution, this HR leader would need to be capable of juggling strategic thinking with advanced risk management plans, in addition to executing day to day operational needs, all whilst undertaking high levels of travel across the region. However, in this post-COVID world, the target candidate population had low appetite for travel which reduced the talent pool available. Also, given the high-profile nature of this role, the executive team sought an experienced HR professional who not only offered a “been there done it well” expertise for the challenges to be worked through, but also international company experience and expertise in Six Sigma or Lean methodology. This further narrowed the talent pool, necessitating a continental search and a strategic approach to marketing the preferred base location for this HR leader.
Solution – We applied a mix of outreach across our extensive networks of high-performance professionals within and outside of France, leveraging both our French speaking populations and our global communities within multinational manufacturing companies. Whilst there was no shortage of initial interest in the role remit, we invested significant time in assessing calibre and candidate commitment to location and travel. We presented 5 HR experts for executive team consideration, all of whom impressed; moved all parties efficiently through a robust hiring process, and the preferred candidate accepted an employment offer without protracted negotiations. Since commencing employment, that person has been rapidly delivering on all key objectives, and is overachieving on performance expectations.
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