Case studies
Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
Roles
- Interim Assistant Financial Accountant (3 months that then became a fixed term contract)
- Interim Financial Accounting Officer (Temporary position that then became fixed term contract)
- Interim Financial Accountant (3-month fixed term contract, extended to 6 months)
- Interim Reconciliations Accountant (1-month fixed term contract, now extended)
- Systems Accountant (2-month fixed term contract)
Client profile
The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) is a statutory regulator of a range of health and care professions in the UK including physiotherapists, radiographers and speech and language therapists. The HCPC’s function is to set and maintain standards for those professions, with the objective of protecting the public.
Assignment
Robertson Bell first engaged with the Health and Care Professions Council in 2019, and over the period of the last year, have worked with the organisation to place a series of roles across their finance department.
The HCPC had undergone a significant period of change since 2019, transitioning through an organisational restructure. This provided a unique opportunity for candidates to come into the organisation and effect purposeful change to drive the organisation forwards.
Assignments with the client varied, from Interim Reconciliations Accountant through to Interim Financial Accountant, meaning that our consultants needed to identify and secure a range of key skills across the finance profession.
Our consultants initially came up against other agencies when placing the first assignments with the HCPC, however the client has now retained Robertson Bell for all future roles. This is testament to the strong relationship that our consultants have developed with the client, and our successful track record.
Considerations and challenges
- Identifying and securing candidates that are experienced in change management and are both resilient and knowledgeable in a technical capacity.
- Sourcing a candidate who understood the challenges and pressures of the organisation, particularly as it prepared and implemented changes.
- Pinpointing highly recommended and sought-after contractors who were available immediately or on a short notice period during a peak time of recruitment.
- These roles were recruited for during the Covid-19 pandemic, which required the contractors to be able to pick up the organisations processes, procedures and systems quickly with limited training.
Solution
Through proactive searching for suitable profiles in our extensive candidate database, coupled with creating and placing targeted adverts on specialist job boards, our consultants were able to identify suitable candidates from a wide talent pipeline.
The final short-list for the position was comprised of qualified candidates attracted by the targeted advertisements and our relationships and connections with contractors in the industry. Furthermore, as the roles are currently being offered as remote positions, we were able to draw up an even stronger shortlist of interim professionals who had the necessary experience.
Our consultants were also able to create strong candidate profiles and job advertisements that leveraged the fact that the renumeration was more competitive than other typical roles across the sector.
Outcome
Although Robertson Bell was initially competing against multiple agencies to place roles for the HCPC, the organisation approached us for retained support in filling positions as they had received a lack of qualified candidates from their usual supplier. Our consultants have demonstrated the value that we can add, by identifying and suggesting high calibre talent, further positioning us as a recruitment partner of choice.
In dedicating time to each role, our consultants were able to present a final shortlist of candidates for interview that had an impressive career history, and mixture of industry experiences.
We recruited the successful interim candidate for each position, after completing a comprehensive search process. Our consultants impressed the client with their ability to hire within a niche area and will be continuing to work with this organisation in the future.