The Background
Having spent over a year assessing the organisation, Clare Hadley, as the new as Chief Executive of Invercargill City Council, undertook a transformational change process at ICC, implementing a new organisational structure to support these changes.
The objective was to deliver council services to a better standard, more quickly and more affordably to ratepayers. As a result, a number of new positions arose from these changes, offering the unique opportunity to create a new Executive Leadership Team.
With total income in excess of $83m per annum and employing over 385 employees, Invercargill City Council is a key player in advancing the growth and prosperity of the Southland Region. The city is in a strong financial position and is committed to key initiatives, including the CBD redevelopment and other significant community and infrastructure investments during the coming years.
What We Did to Help
Partnering alongside both Clare Hadley and Gary Andrews, Manager People & Capability, Louise Green, a Senior Consultant at Sheffield, set about gaining a deep and thorough understanding of ICC - as an organisation, their future direction and needs, and the balance of the skills, competencies and experience that was needed to create a new and complementary executive team.
This initial part of the process was critical in ensuring a successful outcome, and, as Gary explained, ICC “saw these roles as being key to our success in the future”.
Having partnered with Sheffield before, Gary has first-hand experience of how Sheffield works, both as a client and having been placed as a candidate, a few years ago, in another organisation:
“Sheffield takes the time to really get to know the business, its people and the culture, but just as importantly, I know from my own experience, how well they treat our candidates and represent us professionally, essentially being an extension of our culture, across their candidate communications and the whole candidate management process.”
Louise recommended digital advertising for the roles, alongside a very targeted Search approach, where our in-house specialist Research Consultants identify and approach potential candidates who fit the brief but are often not actively looking for new opportunities.
From ICC’s perspective, the biggest value-add they experience is from Louise’s “thoroughness, quality and depth of the candidate reports – they are detailed and insightful and are always in the context of understanding the role and the organisation, and, as a consequence, we avoid wasting anyone’s time.”
What Happened as a Result
Partnering with Invercargill City Council, Sheffield was proud to announce the three new appointments to the Executive Team, and would like to take this opportunity to congratulate:
Michael Day, General Manager - Finance and Assurance
Steve Gibling, General Manager - Leisure and Recreation
Erin Moogan, General Manager – Infrastructure
“Louise worked quietly with someone she thought would be a good potential candidate for us, investing time and effort to discuss the position … quietly going on to become our appointee. Without Louise’s efforts, I don’t believe we would have got them over the line, and that was really a big credit to Louise’s input.” Clare Hadley, CEO, reflected.
Sheffield looks forward to partnering with ICC again as we embark on the process of sourcing the final member of this exciting new leadership team - General Manager Customer & Environment.
The role will be responsible for leading approximately 60 staff across the customer services, environmental, legal, planning and building services, and property records activities, with a focus on leading change, developing capability, encouraging collaboration, and continuing to build accountability.