10 April 2025
Supporting career transitions in the public sector
It feels like every other week we’re hearing another announcement about another round of cost-cutting restructuring in the public sector. Whether in the civil service, NHS, NHS England (NHS E), local government, or the potential axing of numerous government arm’s length bodies, a lot of people will need support transitioning to new roles.
Responsible employers have a duty of care to ensure career transitions are made as smoothly as possible. This means offering career coaching and outplacement support.
This case study gives an overview of what this looks like in practice.
The context
In 2021, we were engaged by NHS E to support executive leaders across the NHS in preparation for up-coming, board-level roles within newly created Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).
NHS E understood that for many applicants it had been some time since they had applied for a new role. As such, we were approached to provide outplacement support services to help ensure successful transitions.
Our approach
Our role was to ensure executives could confidently apply for newly created leadership positions – such as Chief Executive, Chief Finance Officer (CFO), and HR Director – in these new entities.
Service options overview:
|
1.
Initial Conversation |
Documents provided: ·
Example CV/Supporting Statement (SS) ·
Job description and Advert ·
Personality Profile Informal fact-finding chat arranged with an
ex-NHS CEO |
|
2. Personal Profile
Analysis & feedback |
Using our inhouse HR team, we undertook personality profiling
and psychometric assessments, providing insight into the individual’s values,
motivations emotional intelligence, and interpersonal style. Report provided and follow-up debrief interview with our
assessor, if requested. |
|
3.
Phase One |
First meeting to go through the documents
provided, plus: ·
NHS Application ·
Core Competency Examples Documents provided: ·
Core Competency Sheet ·
Leadership Framework Core Competencies ·
Insight from the personality profiling |
|
4.
Phase Two |
Second meeting to review all information and to distil it into
one interview summary document |
|
5.
Formal Interview |
Formal interview with ex-NHS CEO Documents provided: ·
Interview questions ·
Stakeholder instructions |
We engaged candidates who were interested in having a confidential conversation to identify which services best suited their ambitions.
All documents and training materials created were bespoke to the vacancy being applied for, ensuring the NHS application processes and procedures were being followed and the NHS Leadership Core Competencies were being assessed.
Psychometric assessment and profiling tests are useful tools when used as part of a leadership recruitment or development programme. Our skilled in-house practitioners helped transform the data into meaningful insight that ensured candidates were confident in their strengths and aware of areas for development.
We engaged an experienced and qualified independent assessor to have an informal chat with the candidate at the start of the process (option 1) before undertaking a formal interview with them (option 5) at the end. Our assessors are experienced, qualified and highly regarded NHS professionals. For example, Mark Mansfield, an ex-NHS CFO, supported our CFO candidate applicants as part of our service offering in the east of England.
This kind of expert advice, support and challenge was invaluable, applicants benefitting from the firsthand experience and feedback of senior leaders who have successfully negotiated the process themselves and who understand the day-to-day role requirement.
Along with the other tools and resources, each candidate was set up to succeed, at every stage of the application process.
Outcome
Every one of the candidates, bar one, secured the ICB executive position that they had applied for following our application training and support process. Feedback was unanimously positive from both candidates and the client. (References can be provided upon request.)
10 April 2025