These are strange and extremely challenging times and the Russam team very much hope that you and your family are well.

Coronavirus is, of course, top of the agenda and in Jason’s blog piece last week he shared our organisational protocols. Jason talked of our duty of care in a business like ours that is unequivocally all about people and getting individuals together. Thank goodness for Zoom, Skype, and Google Hangouts for helping us to keep the momentum going in our search and interviewing processes. We’ve seen several appointments made this week using this technology. Will this become the new norm?

In self-isolation at home we have been busy calling clients and interims to see how they are doing. We think most of us are in a transition period where we’re changing how we work. The term ‘agile’ comes up a lot; we need to find clever ways to keep our organisations ticking along. The topics of cashflow and financial restructuring also come up a lot in conversation.

It is precisely at times like this that our talent pool of interim executives are needed, and a small positive that has come from the Covid-19 crisis is that on Tuesday HMRC decided to defer the new IR35 rules for 12 months to 6 April 2021. This is a sensible move, but it comes very late in the day.

Many of us have already sorted out new arrangements and thousands of skilled contractors, interims and freelancers have left the organisations they were working with; just days and weeks before the current shutdown. It places hundreds of businesses in an even more difficult predicament. So, we don’t see the IR35 delay as a silver lining, but something that should have been done months ago.

Nevertheless, it may present a useful opportunity to our clients. Our network of interims is ever-growing, with over 30,000 professionals now part of our talent pool – potentially the largest in the industry. Importantly, they are geographically spread so we can find expertise local to our clients’ key sites.

Interim leaders have always helped businesses through uncertain and unsettling times; perhaps now they are needed more than ever. Given that each interim has decades of experience, they can steer the boat through uncharted waters. Usually over-qualified, they can drive restructuring and turnaround; sensitively and carefully managing through a downturn, and putting in place protective measures.

Russam was the first interim provider (1982) in the UK and we have been building our excellent talent pool of interims ever since. We haven’t seen anything quite like the Coronavirus crisis in our 39-year history, but we have navigated several recessions and stand ready, by your side, to help you through this time.

Specifically, we have 1,536 interim managers with a primary focus on financial control and corporate finance with particular expertise in restructuring, forecasting, cash management, turnaround, business planning and capital raising. Around 20% are turnaround/restructuring leaders and the balance are highly experienced in forecasting, analysis, reporting and project management.

We are finding new and innovative ways to showcase our capabilities in the current environment. We have placed many leaders in key industries such as health, food retailing, charity and transport. We understand from our managing partner Cathy Kay that we have a cadre of experts in tele-health now providing essential health and medical advice via voice and video calls. Our colleagues in the NFP sector have many experienced people ready to help organisations in distress.

We are eager to support you through the coming weeks and months in any way we can. Please get in touch to discuss your challenges and priorities.