Conducting an Executive Search for a Leader in People and Culture Strategy to Support Positive Employee Experiences
The Brief
The world-leading cancer treatment centre engaged Future Leadership to support the leadership team in appointing a senior executive to lead the ongoing development of a responsive, innovative and strategic People & Culture service. The position’s focus is to provide a strong vision for People & Culture within the organisation, in addition to building a positive and engaging workplace culture. The client sought to identify a highly qualified individual who would prioritise a best practice, contemporary people services delivery model focused on developing capability in leadership, organisational development, health safety and wellbeing, industrial relations, performance management and change.
Candidate net Promote Score
Future Leadership combines truly personalised relationships with innovative technology solutions to ensure an approachable and efficient process for all our Net Promoter Score across clients, successful candidates and unsuccessful candidates is well above industry standard.
Candidates supported every year
We maintain genuine relationships with past candidates and continue to support them with leadership solutions long term, after they land their role.
Senior Women Appointed since 2002
Over half of the executive search assignments undertaken by our team have resulted in the appointment of outstanding female or LGBTQI+ leaders to high profile roles.
Candidate Retention Rate for 12 months since 2002
Our thorough briefing process and ability to engage passive candidates mean that we go to great lengths to find the right person for the role – long term!
The Process
Future Leadership™ assembled a specialised team, and an experienced research and administration team, to lead the search. Key steps included:
- Targeted Search and Talent Pooling: With prior and recent experience in supporting health sector organisations with People & Culture appointments, Liz Jones, Managing Partner, was able to immediately commence the search by engaging with known candidates in addition to reaching out to trusted referral partners to ensure all appropriate potential candidates were spoken with.
- Comprehensive Shortlisting: The targeted search campaign was supported by an online advertising campaign. Liz and the broader team managed all candidate enquiries, encouraging candidates who met the brief to submit applications.
- Panel Interviews and Strategic Presentation: The team supported two rounds of panel interviews, psychometric assessment and reference checking for the final two candidates.
Emerging Capabilities
Strategy and Purpose
Develops and leads strategy for the function/organisation, taking a broad and long-term perspective. Understands and considers context. Communicates and gains buy-in to the function/organisation goals, direction and vision, promoting change initiatives.
Stakeholder Relations
Establishes rapport with stakeholders, builds and sustains trusted and collaborative relationships.
Identifies and draws on relevant and diverse perspectives and integrates them to support productive interactions.
Communication and Influence
Communicates with clarity and impact to facilitate individual and collective understanding, inspire action and enable information exchange. Leverages human-centric communication and storytelling to effectively influence stakeholders across the physical and virtual realms.
Culture and Engagement
Fosters a positive culture, creating a sense of belonging and inclusiveness. Creates an environment that encourages diverse perspectives and facilitates a psychologically safe environment.
Systems Thinking
Systematically breaks down siloes across the operating environment and connects stakeholders to harness convergent ideas. Understands the leverage points of systems change and demonstrates the ability to think beyond known systems.
Organisational Capability
Anticipates future workplace skills and requirements and builds capability across the organisation. Pro-actively seeks opportunities to develop other people’s talent and career pathways and takes appropriate action to address skill gaps in others.
The Outcome
The successful appointment commenced in the role in early April 2021. The panel recognised the candidate’s impressive breadth of HR experience across multiple sectors, and the excellent outcomes he achieved during his appointment with a previous leading health insistution.
I was fortunate enough to be contacted to gauge my interest in the Executive Director position at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The information provided clarity of what the client was after and encouraged me to apply for the role. Throughout the process, regardless of my successful outcome, the direction, guidance and assistance from Fisher Leadership was exceptional. Liz was extremely professional in taking me through the process and what the client was after, and she and I were very well assisted by Paula and Katherine. Not only did they help me, I could see the attention they were paying to the needs of the client in trying to get them the best person for the role. I would highly recommend them to an organisation who is after a dedicated and highly capable search firm.
