Case STUDIES

Context; In 2020 Central Bedfordshire Council, CBC incorporated a group of companies which entail an overarching holding company, The Central Bedfordshire Group (TCBG) and two subsidiary companies which include Care is Central (CiC), a care provision organisation with great growth potential and New Vista Homes (NVH), an exciting housing development company.

CiC currently operates in seven independent living schemes focusing primarily on the delivery of care services to adults. CiC will provide care and support to people living in independent living and supported living schemes and will operate registered care homes for older people and short break units for adults with learning and physical disabilities.

In the Summer of 2023, Osborne Thomas were awarded the recruitment of the Managing Director to lead CiC. The right appointment was a key determinant to the success of the business as the person was going to be critical to driving the successful delivery of the organisation’s ambition.

Methodology; Following our initial briefing meeting with key CiC stakeholders, our senior consultants started mapping appropriate organisations and reaching out to our existing talent pools. Given the niche requirements of this role; experience of reporting to a board, a strong background in and passion for care services and the crucial balance of operational and commercial acumen, we searched the market extensively focussing on candidates who were already operating at MD level and those who were aspirational. Added to that, we undertook social media advertising to promote the role.

Our consultants interviewed and briefed candidates on key areas for the role and ultimately collated a list of five strong candidates.

Following successful shortlisting, candidates underwent psychometric testing to provide the panel with additional invaluable knowledge, before progressing to a two-stage interview process; technical, followed by a panel.

Outcome; After a robust process it was determined that two of the five candidates were deemed appointable and CiC were delighted to make a successful appointment.

Quote; “Having never worked with OT before I was sceptical when they were recommended by HR.

The scepticism has been utterly disproven and replaced by admiration and respect for the professionalism they showed in the recruitment of a new MD for one of our businesses. They grasped the brief quickly, demonstrated a remarkable understanding of cultural demands and moved through the stages with professional speed and yet discourse of value at every stage which included psychometrics and technical interview stages. They counselled wisely, but also listened effectively to produce an outstanding shortlist and an admirable appointee.

If you want to recruit properly and feel totally involved in the process I cannot recommend them highly enough. You will get a very well managed process and well thought out interaction with all their people. We will certainly have them at the top of our list of recruiters for all our people in the future.” – Bill McCarthy Chair of TCBG Ltd

Head of Legal – £90,078 – £94,905 per annum

Principal Property Lawyer – £74,919 – £79,476 per annum

Context; With some changes within the Legal & Democratic Services Department, the Director, Helen Harris was looking for two key individuals to be at the forefront of the service guiding, influencing and leading upon continuous service improvements in order to embrace Ealing’s corporate priorities and initiatives. Following a transformational programme across the Council and a number of regenerative and developmental projects underway this was an exciting time to be joining and both roles provided opportunity for career enhancement.

Methodology; Our executive search and attraction methodologies included reviewing our current database of legal professionals, the mapping and identification of new talent within similar organisations and advertising through LinkedIn, Local Government Lawyer and London Borough’s Legal Alliance. For both roles we were able to engage with rich pools of highly talented and career hungry potential candidates; our long and shortlists resulting in a number of appointable individuals.

Outcome; For the Head of Legal there were two appointable candidates and for the Principal Property Lawyer, three. Ealing were delighted with the process and are excited to be welcoming their new recruits in the coming weeks.

Quote; “I found Lucy and her team to be friendly, well-informed, and hard working.  And they found me some excellent candidates, which I know is unlikely to have happened without their support” – Helen Harris, Director of Legal and Democratic Services

Context; When Adur & Worthing Councils awarded Osborne Thomas the assignment to recruit to six leadership roles the organisation was part way through a redesign. Their Chief Executive, Catherine Howe now needed independent, external support to complement the make up of her leadership team in order to take the Councils closer to their main purpose of providing good and lasting stewardship for Adur and Worthing. The six key Leadership Team roles included: – Assistant Director: Finance (and statutory 151 Officer), Assistant Director: Housing & Homelessness Prevention, Assistant Director: People & Change, Assistant Director – Regenerative Development, Head of Technology and Design, and Head of Resident Services.

Methodology; Our approach was to combine in-depth and inclusive searches with high profile advertising and PR collateral across the MJ, the Guardian and through social targeting via Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter in order to maximise our reach. Key from the outset was to work closely with Catherine to understand each of the specific and niche skillsets and experiences she required of potential candidates, but also to consider the current leadership team profile with view to adding to fulfilling and enhancing its overall composition and capability for the future.

Our searches included the mapping, identification and engagement of largely passive audiences and included consideration to those potential candidates looking for their next step up. We reached out to the wider public sector, ie not just local government, and equally considered the private sector for those roles where we knew an injection of commerciality might be welcomed. Whilst we launched all roles to the market simultaneously, we recommended the staggering of closing dates, assessment and interview dates to allow for sensible diary management with Catherine and additional key stakeholders within the Councils.

Outcome; All roles were successfully fulfilled with multiple roles having a selection of appointable candidates. The shortlisted candidates came from previous roles within Local Government, Universities, Housing Associations and beyond.

Quote; “Working with Osborne Thomas over the last few months has been a very easy and pleasurable experience. Not having worked with them before we could not be more impressed with their understanding of each of the role briefs, the speed with which they were able to take all the roles to market simultaneously, their due-diligence, and their organisation of us (many stakeholders!). We are delighted to have the new members of our leadership team now joining us.” – Richard Tuset, Policy Advisor to Catherine Howe, CEO of Adur & Worthing Councils.

“Working with Osborne Thomas to recruit to my Leadership Team was a very refreshing experience for us. The dynamism in their approach and the pace at which they successfully secured wide pools of talented candidates across multiple disciplines was exemplary. We found them extremely thorough in their management of us; nothing was ever a problem. And they were a delight to work with throughout.” – Catherine Howe, Chief Executive of Adur & Worthing Councils

Context; The GLT is a successful multi academy trust and currently comprises twenty-three schools: seven in South London, four in Berkshire, one in Surrey, eight in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire and three in Plymouth. We were awarded the search opportunity of Regional HR Manager as they continued to grow. Having failed to recruit several times already both via their own efforts and via other agencies Greenshaw awarded Osborne Thomas the search opportunity to fill this key role.

Methodology; Our search included reviewing our database of permanent professionals, and reaching out to the market engaging with both active and passive job seeking candidates. We also posted messages through our LinkedIn recruitment licences, engaged with potential candidates via our social media groups and networks, and conducted Boolean searches to seek out potentially new talent.

Outcome; From our recommended shortlist of six, all six candidates were taken through to final interview upon which a successful appointment was made.

Context; Shropshire Council reached out to us to fulfil the role of Assistant Director of Efficiency and Transformation. Working to the Chief Executive, this role was critical for Shropshire’s vision; the council was embarking on a significant programme of change and needed an exceptionally strong and experienced leader who could guide them through the programme. Shropshire had attempted to recruit to this role themselves, but this was ultimately not successful with candidates who applied misunderstanding the complexity of the role being recruited to.

 Methodology; Given the enormity of scope, and the unique skillsets and experience required for this role our approach was to conduct a targeted search focussing on those within both the public and private sectors. Our inclusive, thorough and deep research, mapping and identification of those in similar roles combined with creative thinking in line with our findings from the briefing meeting, we went beyond the expected or typical sources of candidates. Our far-reaching use of a wide range of resources also included reviewing our networks/contacts within relevant professional associations/bodies. We also accessed the same/similar networks available via Boolean searches through Google and our LinkedIn licences and other social media platforms.

Outcome; With a longlist of nine applications, we brought five candidates through to an initial conversation with the chief executive to discuss the role and their experience. From this stage, two candidates were taken through to final Member Panel interview with one candidate being regarded as exceptional. Present for each stage of the process we were able to provide key advice and our own recommendations to both the chief executive and Members.

This was our first permanent executive search for Shropshire Council and they were absolutely delighted.

Quote; “Working with Osborne Thomas, in particular Kate and Maria, has been fantastic. Their attention to detail, our needs and providing a truly bespoke service has all in all been an excellent experience.” –  Sam Williams, Assistant Director of Workforce and Improvement

Context; As the largest commercial Local Authority Trading Company in the UK, Norse Group presents a track record of delivering profitable and successful partnerships with councils both locally and nationally. Norse prides itself on building long term collaborative relationships with the vision and aim to improve people’s lives. They required a new key individual to be the strategic lead for their partnership arrangement with Leeds City Council.

Methodology; The new post holder had some significant qualities to meet! Some of these qualities included, needing to be a well-rounded Chartered Professional who had expert knowledge of commercially driven contract administration. They equally needed to have in-depth knowledge of the public sector and the working ethics, complexities and sensitivities that come with it.

Our fresh search for this role covered the following areas: – identifying and mapping of sectors, organisations, individuals, groups and networks where matching skillsets and experience may lie.

We also looked at individuals that may have the transferable skills and/or additional skills that would bring something new to Norse, and we fully explored the vertical career supply chain to identify individuals from lower tiers that might be ‘promotion ready’.

Outcome; With a shortlist of 7 candidates, 6 high quality candidates were taken through to interview and a successful appointment was made. Our first recruitment campaign with Norse; they were delighted.

Context; Following a strategic review of its three wholesale markets, the City of London Corporation is embarking on a major transformation and co-location strategy to ensure its markets are fit for the 21^st century, sustainable and enabled for future expansion; currently constrained at the existing locations. The City purchased a 42-acre site at Dagenham Dock in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham for this purpose submitting a Private Bill to Parliament in November 2022 to obtain Royal Assent to move the markets. A high-profile, and complex programme to move all three City markets and the subsequent development of the vacant sites is significant; we were appointed to fulfil 9 highly specialised roles across a range of grades.

Methodology; Osborne Thomas worked closely with Directors from the City of London to understand the key niche and highly commercial skillsets needed to make this programme a success. They needed candidates who fully understood multimodal logistics, complex stakeholder relationships and ideally came with the added nuance of food-based experiences.

With an existing site already in place containing the full programme plans, we advised adding an additional ‘Jobs’ page to this site rather than the creation of an entirely new microsite – creating a significant saving. With targeted advertising, including the use of social media combined with our extensive mapping of the market, tapping into sectors inside and outside of the public sector, we were able to reach significant pools of candidates.

Outcome; We successfully appointed to all of the roles.

Context; The Royal Borough is one of the smallest in the country. It’s also one of the most densely populated and diverse. Everyone working there is focused on delivering the best service for their residents, businesses and communities. Nowhere more so than in their Digital, Data & Technology Service, where the organisation has big ambitions to transform how they deliver truly life-changing services.

Methodology; At the same time as designing and creating bespoke and branded advertising/PR collateral we took the time to undertake some initial market testing reviewing potential candidates, discussing with them the upcoming opportunities and gaining some early interest and engagement. This included extensive mapping of the market searching key sectors and appropriate target organisations identifying where key active and passive job seeking talent may reside.

In following this course of activity, we were able to reach a diverse and fully inclusive market, including those from outside of local government.

To support our search methodologies, and because RBKC wanted to make “noise” in the market, we worked with our creative team devising a geo-targeted media attraction plan incorporating traditional sector/vertical job boards plus a series of messages delivered via MPU banners across relevant news and job pages on the Guardian and CWJobs. Crucially, both channels used tools that attempted to identify and engage with a passive audience; an approach we supported with a two month long social media and Google paid-for advertising campaign.

Given the volume of roles – as an entirely brand-new DD&T team was being created, involving the different levels of seniority and specialisms – we agreed with RBKC that there would be four different recruitment tranches rolled out, it was important to drive traffic to a single source of information where with minimum effort, visitors could find details on the roles, the rewards and benefits on offer, as well as an introduction to the wider goals and aims of the new team.

The solution was a dedicated campaign microsite.

The IT marketplace has always been a difficult one to attract talent, and after the effects of the pandemic and the Great Resignation, that situation has not got any easier. That said, we used multiple brand messages across our advertising collateral to keep the approach fresh, all of which was A-B tested throughout so that we could concentrate more resources on those banners that had the most resonance with the target audience(s). Our social platform also used AI to learn over the duration of the campaign which platforms and online behaviours of their users were likely to result in more click throughs to the destination microsite.

Outcome; As a result, the four tranches of jobs generated a response rate of more than 2,500 application clicks across the different media channels, with a significantly higher CTR than the industry benchmark. Over 78% of the positions were filled which in a difficult sector has been a great return.

Over 50% of our candidate pools came from minority groups, and 85% of the fulfilments came as a result of our searches. 

Quote; I wanted to express my thanks and appreciation for the results you and the team have delivered since engaging with Osborne Thomas to help in establishing the Sovereign Digital Data & Technology Service.  We approached you at a time when the market was at its most competitive, seeking over 30 highly sought-after roles , and insisted this was launched across prime holiday season – not an easy ask.

You and the team help to meticulously plan the campaign, challenged, and helped us revisit the approach, provided market intelligence and insights, created a superb microsite, provided support, managed the project plan and weekly status updates alongside screening, candidate engagement and a range of other services . To date I believe we have recruited and are onboarding the successful applicants for over 60 % of those roles. A fabulous result in a very tough marketplace.

Interim Chief Digital & Information Officer – Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Context; following a review of their HR function service provision Barnsley approached us to seek out a highly skilled and experienced HR & OD practitioner to fulfil a key role leading up to elements of key transformation across the Authority. Ideally, they wanted someone from outside of sector who would bring new knowledge and a challenging mindset.

Methodology; because of our knowledge and experience of the market i.e., strong skillsets and real talent being scarce at this level we advised a pure search solution. Through our networks and groups, and our direct searches via LinkedIn and other social media channels we were able to reach out to a newer and fresher talent base than simply just referring to our databases and relying on known contacts.

Outcome; in presenting our strong and diverse longlist of candidates, 4 candidates were taken through to shortlist, all of whom we assessed through profiling with the support of one of our Business Psychologists; our viewpoint being that their behaviours within the working environment would be the key to recruiting the best candidate. That candidate came from higher education.

Context; we were approached by Lambeth to undertake the fulfilment of their Head of Data, Insight & Analytics. A relatively new discipline within local government and one that has become increasingly important since the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew we had a tough assignment on our hands.

Methodology; Lambeth were significantly investing in and transforming their Performance and Business Improvement Directorate, so we had a great story to take to the market and promote to prospective candidates. Through identifying and engaging with, and the securing of candidates directly through our professional services database and our networks and contacts, we quickly secured a lengthy and robust longlist from which to select our shortlist.

Outcome; our long and shortlists were diverse in background, with candidates coming from other local authorities, large third sector organisations, central government bodies and organisations and the private sector. Our candidate pool was 40% BAME and 20% female, and the role was filled successfully.

Context; the role came about in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, and Camden’s own response to their significant and high-rise housing stock.

Methodology; a pure search exercise including the mapping, targeting and engagement of those suitably qualified, skilled, and experienced working across the public sector, reviewing our own databases, networks and contacts, and social media activity. Several sifting techniques were utilised including the matching of key criteria supplied within the role profile, in-depth candidate interviews, combined review of the longlist and agreement upon shortlist, assessment tools including profiling, the provision of additional technical assessment, and final interview Member panel.

Outcome; two strong candidates were taken forward to final interview Member panel with the successfully appointed candidate coming from a Partnership of Housing Associations across the South of England.

Context; with challenges within their Place Directorate Rutland initially approached us to fulfil their Director of Place on an interim basis, their view being that this would give them time to consider what the permanent role needed to look like.

Methodology; whilst our first port of call tends to be reviewing our database of 35,000+ professionals which we did we equally reached out to the market by posting messages through our LinkedIn licences and conducting Boolean searches to seek out potentially new talent.

Outcome; within a matter of days, we were able to secure a strong pool of 4 candidates which Rutland were able to interview; their preferred female candidate was offered, and she accepted. And after a period of six months, she decided to accept the role on a permanent basis.

Context; Manchester had been out twice to advertise for this role and failed; lack of the necessary skillsets and experience in the market were coming to the forefront resulting in them not able to put even a longlist together. Now an urgent role requirement they not only needed a speedy solution, but they also had preference for a diverse candidate pool.

Methodology; a pure search (unnecessary and further advertising would have been wasteful) we specifically targeted appropriately qualified individuals through the use of LinkedIn/other social networks and groups and our Boolean algorithm techniques whereby creating specific sets of key words we were able to filter the most relevant candidate profiles via Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social platforms including specialist minority groups such as Black History Month, ngdp-BAME, Breakthrough UK, Women into Leadership, etc.

Outcome; with a longlist of 11, were able to shortlist 4 (including 2 females and 1 from a BAME background), 3 of whom came from outside of local government. Ultimately a female was the successful candidate.