Why Full Time eBook

e-book
Why Full Time?
Large Businesses may be able to afford and justify the full time engagement of high
quality executives….BUT SMALLER BUSINESSES

2
Contact: stephenbarter@nxd.co Telephone: 08450 038213 www.nxd.co
Disclaimer:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author,
except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
First Edition 2012. Copyright NXD Services 2012. Contact the author: stephenbarter@nxd.co
Book design and production by Lean productions. www.leanproductions.co.uk
Contents
INTRODUCTION 3
PART 1
WHY DO BUSINESSES ALWAYS SEEM TO EMPLOY
FULL-TIME SENIOR MANAGERS? 4
PART 2
IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES COULD
PART-TIME EXECUTIVES BE APPROPRIATE? 6
PART 3
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF ADOPTING A PART-TIME STRATEGY? 9
PART 4
WHAT ARE THE PRACTICALITIES OF ADOPTING A PART-TIME STRATEGY? 13
SUMMARY 16
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 17

3
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
This short e-book is devoted to the topic of why the business world in the UK seems fixated on employing full time senior
executives.
Whilst it may be appropriate for large corporates to engage their senior executives on a full time basis because they have
the finances to fund as such and the breadth and depth of work to keep them occupied - but for SME’s and smaller listed
companies??!?
If you sit back and think about it, it’s totally illogical for most companies to employ full time senior executives. Business is
very used to employing other types of workforce on a part time basis but not senior executives – yet the benefits to most
businesses of employing their senior staff on a part time basis are much bigger.
What I want to do in this book is firstly explore why businesses always seem to go for full time senior executives, secondly
to look at the circumstances in which part time executives could be appropriate, thirdly to look at the benefits that can be
accrued by adapting a part time strategy and finally look at the practicalities of adopting such a strategy.
One final comment before we get into the detail – this is an important topic, it is in fact one of the most important topics for
most businesses in the UK today. I would confidently estimate that over 95% of British businesses could significantly
improve their financial performance by adopting, at least in part, a part time employment strategy for senior management.
In my line of work I come across SME’s every day and I have yet to come across one that I don’t think could benefit from
this strategy – it is that fundamental, that important and that compelling.
WHY
FULL
TIME?

Biography
Why Full Time?
4
Contact: stephenbarter@nxdservices.com Telephone: 08450 038213 www.nxdservices.co
PART 1 - WHY DO BUSINESSES ALWAYS
SEEM TO EMPLOY FULL TIME SENIOR
MANAGERS?
We’ve always done it that way
I guess the most obvious answer is because that’s what
they’ve always done. It is actually an answer that you can
apply to many things in the business world. Strange,
because most senior business leaders would like to think
of themselves as broad minded people who are capable
of thinking “out of the box” and are always looking for
better ways of doing things. The reality however is that
most of them do not really challenge the status quo -
custom and practice, best practice, competence, tried and
trusted business processes, due diligence and so on tend
to be the most powerful influences in larger business and
tend therefore to form the standard business practice.
Before I go further let me make it clear that I am not
dismissing any of these things as wrong or inappropriate,
far from it because they all have an important place in well
run businesses, what I am however saying is that they can
stifle original thinking and can produce inertia if they are
too dominant.
Let me give you an example, Best Practice is all about
adopting the practices and processes of the businesses
that are most successful in a particular sphere of activity.
Yet if one applies this concept arrogantly and completely
then ultimately everyone will accept the same and no-one
will ever introduce anything better.
If you don’t believe me, let’s apply it back to the topic in
hand. Why do the vast majority of business both large
and small rely on full time senior management when you
read on and realise the very large benefits that can accrue
to a well thought out and sensibly implemented part time
strategy, you can (and I am sure will) only put it down to
custom and practice dictating that full time senior
management is what businesses need.
But this is not the full story there are other factors, some
of which are very genuine and need to be taken into
consideration
What about loyalty and commitment?
There is a view held by many business leaders that it is
Only with a full time employee that you have true loyalty
and commitment and that, especially in management, the
introduction of part timers would risk less commitment,
potential security breaches and conflicts of interest.
Whilst I fully understand these concerns and believe they
should be considerations included and catered for in any
part time strategy I believe they are largely unfounded
concerns for a properly thought out and implemented
part time strategy. Let’s explore them in more detail.
The issues of loyalty and commitment are as much (if not
more) about the personal standards and values of the
person you are employing as they are about whether that
person has any other business interests. In fact, I would
go a step further in today’s business world it is a fact now
more than ever that business managers (at a senior level
even more so) change job and company more rapidly
and more frequently than ever before. So, even if the full
time executive was loyal and committed while he or she
worked for your company, will that be the case when he
or she moves to your major competitor next month? I am
working with businesses all the time where they are
either benefitting from or being damaged by such moves.
Let me ask the question, would you rather have
someone who for a period of time is 100% committed
and loyal to you and then is 100% a competitor, or
someone who remains long term loyal and committed to
you, but does have other businesses that he or she also
has loyalties and commitments to?
Let’s also look at the whole issue of “security breaches.”
This isn’t just potentially passing on secrets, it is much
more generally the worry that many businesses have that
someone could be feeding inside information to another
party or could be using their experience with you to
benefit another business.
I believe, and my experience backs this up, that worries
about secrets or inside information being passed on are
unnecessary concerns. Any appointment of a part time
manager should be accompanied by a legally binding
agreement on confidentiality and unless someone is
involved in industrial espionage then it is no more likely a
part timer will pass anything on to others than a full timer.

Biography
Why Full Time?
5
The point about the part time manager using their
experience with you to benefit another business is
however very real. It is real, but unless there is a conflict
of interest it is actually beneficial rather than detrimental.
If the part time executive is using his or her experience
with you to benefit other businesses, then, equally he or
she can use their experience with other businesses to
benefit yours. Indeed this is one of the side benefits of
employing a part time executive who has built a portfolio
career. The key is to check carefully upon appointment
that there is no conflict of interest with other roles the
executive is currently performing, and to ensure in the
legally binding agreement that the whole issue of conflict
of interests is properly covered for regarding any future
appointments he or she may take on.
Where can I find one?
Another major factor is that of where does one go to find a
suitable part time executive. Because, as already noted,
the business world is geared to full time executives there
is no obvious place to go to find a part timer. That
certainly has been the case up until recently. However a
few specialists in the provision of part time support
especially for Finance Directors now exist such as the FD
Centre or Secantor. Additionally we at NXD are now
offering a free of charge service to find the right quality
part time executive for your needs across all sectors and
all functions. Whilst I don’t want to make this e-book an
advertisement for the services we can provide, I will
nevertheless provide further details of what we can offer
later in the book because it does answer the question
about where do you go to find a good quality part time
that’s right for your needs.
The wider answer to this question is that the
demographics of executive employment in the UK have
changed. These days senior executives seldom stay in
their full time role until retirement age – most leave with far
too much energy, enthusiasm and life to live to just do
nothing, so most end up wanting to use their experience,
skill and knowledge working with other businesses and
look to build a portfolio career for themselves. The key
here is that these people, unlike the rest of the business
world actually want to work part time and don’t want full
time roles. Thus there is a ready-made source of
excellent quality part time executives and it is this that
NXD is trying to make available to the SME world and
smaller listed companies initially offering non-executives
but now offering part time executives also.
What if they are better than me
One of the other concerns people have when appointing
either a full time or a part time executive is that they don’t
want to appoint someone who is too good, dare I say it,
better than the business owner or the MD making the
appointment. This is particularly relevant to the
appointment of a part time executive because as we shall
see when we deal with the benefits that can be gained
with such a strategy, one of the key benefits is the ability
to engage a top quality part timer at the same cost as a
“mediocre” full timer.
This issue is actually the most difficult to deal with
because it is no longer about fact and logic; it is about
perception and emotion. All I can do is provide some
words of advice, common sense and experience. There
should be no shame and no feeling of inadequacy
engaging someone of a very high calibre, someone as
good as or even better than you. You remain the boss,
you remain in charge, you are just being clever enough
to realise that you can’t do it all yourself and the best
chance of making your business a success is to ensure
you get the best possible management team in place.
Throughout my career, and still today, I surround myself
with the best possible quality of managers – any really
successful business leader will say the same thing their
success is largely down to their management team and
their individual skill has been to assemble the best quality
team they can. In short, providing the personal chemistry
works (a point we will cover later), then don’t shy away
from quality- embrace it with both hands, that’s what will
make you truly successful.

Biography
Why Full Time?
6
PART 2 – IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES
COULD PART TIME EXECUTIVES BE
APPROPRIATE?
The simple answer to this is that part time executives in
some way, shape or form could be appropriate and
beneficial to the vast majority of PAYE based businesses
in the UK today. In total there are about 4.5 million
business enterprises in the UK of which nearly 1.2 million
have employees. You can see from the table below the
split between micro (1-9 employees), small (10-49),
medium (50-249) and large (250+).
Whilst I think part time executives can be applicable to
large listed businesses as well, it is the SME sector that
we are particularly interested in and where part time
executives can be of unquestionable value. It is interesting
to note that, whilst one always considers the business
world to be dominated by large corporates, actually the
SME sector accounts for nearly 50% of total business
turnover and employs nearly 60% of all workers – so the
potential application for a part time strategy is enormous.
Source: BIS Department for Business Innovation &
Skills – Statistical Release Business Population
Estimates for the UK and Regions 2011
Having stated that most businesses could benefit from at
least some form of part time strategy, I think it will be
helpful to look at some specific examples of when part
time executives could work well. But before doing so I
want to just detail some general characteristics to help
you assess whether your business is likely to be an ideal
beneficiary of a part time executive(s) – if you answer
“Yes” to any of the questions below it would be well worth
your time exploring the topic further:
1) Is your business subject to an actual or a
planned period of serious growth and expansion?
2) Do you have a workforce of between 25 & 250
heads?
3) Do you have a Board of Management and if you
do is it 3 people or less?
4) Does your business own valuable Intellectual
Property and/or is involved in high value complex
contracted agreements
5) Do you currently or will you have the need in the
foreseeable future to raise investment funds?
6) Do you have any plans for mergers or
acquisitions?
7) Are you intending to commence or expand your
export activity/internationalise your company?
8) Are you intending to introduce new products or
open up new markets?
9) Do you have any issues with your business that
you don’t have an answer for and that keep you
awake at night?

Biography
Why Full Time?
7
Serious about Growth
We come across lots of businesses with serious growth
ambitions. Typically such businesses already have one or
more sales person (s), but decide that they need someone
at a more senior level to take responsibility for the sales
and marketing function. So again, typically they go out
and recruit a full time sales manager/director within the
budget they have for the role.
The contention is that they have just embraced mediocrity!
Almost by definition they cannot afford a top quality sales
and marketing director with great knowledge, experience
and contacts – so they have to settle for the best they can
attract. They also move from a position on a Friday of
having no sales and marketing director to the following
Monday having one full time. Any sales growth will be
achieved gradually over a period of time, yet the resource
is going in all at once. The alternative is obvious – take
on a top quality sales and marketing director with great
knowledge, experience and contacts but only employ him
or her for a day or two a week, maybe even less to begin
with – then as the sales start to grow and the income
increases, slowly increase the time element. At some
point, you may want to go out and recruit someone full
time, but wait until you can justify it and can afford the
right calibre individual.
We are currently working with a number of companies
where we are providing people who are doing exactly this
part time Sales and Marketing role to great effect.
Worried about compliance?
Most very small businesses have neither the need nor the
time to keep up to date on all the legal obligations and
compliance issues related to employing staff. However,
as they grow the risks and exposure associated with the
mishandling of staff issues increases disproportionately.
Again, most businesses look to upgrade their HR
capability and appoint someone who has some kind of an
HR background or at least is good with people – but not
normally a HR professional who is properly up to date,
with and understands all the HR obligations and almost
certainly not someone who can help you develop and
manage a HR strategy including pay and reward,
management development, succession planning etc. etc.
We again work with a number of companies in this
situation and strongly encourage them to take on a part
time HR Director often just 1 or 2 days a month – may be
even less, but always available at the end of a phone.
Building the Board
Many of the businesses we work with have owner
managers who have built the business from scratch.
Sometimes they may have built a small ‘Board’, but often
they still take every important decision themselves; and
however good they are or their one or two co-directors
are, they cannot cover every function to the highest
standard. So when a function starts to become more
important within the business it’s important to bring on
board a sufficiently skilled ‘owner’ for it.
Let me give you an example, a manufacturing business
in the construction sector, £3m turnover with ambitious
development plans. Two key players, one operational
and one commercial, identified that they needed to
strengthen their sales and marketing and finance
capabilities. They have already taken on a part time
sales and marketing executive a day and a half a month
to begin with but with the ability to flex time upwards as
required. They are now in the process of taking on a part
time CFO working a day a week again with the ability to
flex if required. In both cases they have taken on people
they couldn’t possible afford on a full time basis, but are
now represented by people that give them a new level of
credibility in the market place; people who can play an
important part in board discussions and strategy for the
business based on real first hand experience of having
been there and done it before; people with amazing
contact networks; people with real gravitas. Even though
it’s early days yet the effect has been significant and one
can already see the business shaping up to achieve its
objectives and more.
“Whilst we engaged our NXD member to look
at sales and marketing she quickly identified
that before doing that we needed to get some
basic processes in place. We have made a lot
of progress in this area.
Our NXD member has kept us on course with
achieving our goals. She has helped us to
realise that regular contact with our existing
clients can result in extra sales and these are
the easiest sales to achieve. However we do
now have a working sales pipeline and we are
now winning new business.”
DEB GREAVES; OPS DIRECTOR –
COREWARE LTD

Biography
Why Full Time?
8
Protecting Intellectual Property
We work a lot with university spin outs and generally with
‘Tech’ businesses so we get heavily involved in the whole
issue of intellectual property and more specifically
protecting IP. As anyone involved in this area knows, it’s
not just about patents not only are patents very expensive,
they often don’t end up protecting you the way you want
and often do alert the competition to what you are doing.
The fact of the matter is the whole issue of ownership and
protection of IP is extremely complex and full of potential
traps and pitfalls.
So what to do? Most people do one of two things: either
take little or no professional advice, do the best they can
and hope; or they engage a firm of IP lawyers to provide
advice and solutions. Typically the first is highly risky and
the second highly expensive.
If you have valuable IP and you rely on guesses and
hopes you may well get your fingers badly burnt, it’s also
the case that if you need funding at some stage the first
thing a potential investor will want to know about is the
ownership and protection of the IP. If you go to a
reputable IP lawyer you will pay handsomely for the
advice and normally the advice will include further work for
the lawyers themselves – and once you start down the
track it only gets more expensive.
There is however another alternative and that is to engage
someone on a part time basis with the necessary
background and skill set who works for you and is
interested in the success of your business, but
understands the world of IP ownership and protection and
can talk and negotiate with IP lawyers on a level footing.
Wanting to export
Whilst I could go on indefinitely with scenarios and
circumstances where a part time executive is particularly
appropriate, I will give just one further example. This one
is particularly topical and has received lots of attention
from the Government and the UKTI. It relates to the whole
area of export and internationalisation of businesses.
The Government is keen to get more and more SMEs to
export, especially to the BRIC countries where economic
growth is much more exciting than in North America and
Europe. In principle I wholly agree that this strategy
makes sense for ‘UK Plc’ and I do think that British SMEs
provide some great products and services that could be
really successful in other territories. But, and it is a big
but, any idea that it is easy to expand business beyond
these shores and that one should just get on with it, is
completely wrong and under-estimates the challenges
and the difficulties involved.
I always liken it to when I brought a property abroad, I
learnt the hard way and got ripped off on a number of
occasions, not because I am stupid but purely because I
didn’t understand the way of doing things in another
country – and believe me quite little, seemingly
innocuous things can be very important. But now, I could
advise anyone else on what to do and what not to do if
they were looking to buy in the same country – I’m no
more intelligent than when I bought my property, but I
have one hugely important thing now and that is
experience.
So with anyone considering exporting to a new country
or indeed outsourcing manufacturing to a new country,
my first piece of advice would always be the same,
unless you already have the experience on board go out
and engage someone on a part time basis who has good
experience in that country and preferably has the
appropriate language skills as well.

Biography
Why Full Time?
9
PART 3 – WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF
ADOPTING A PART TIME STARTEGY?
The first thing I want to do is explain what I mean by a part
time strategy. I am not suggesting that all your senior
executives should be part time, indeed whilst occasionally
it may make sense normally I would not recommend that.
Normally, I would recommend that there should be a core
(which might only be one or two) of full time executives.
What I mean by a part time strategy is that there is no
fixed view that all roles have to be full time and that at any
point in time there is an openness to some of the roles
being part time.
So now let us look at the all important question of what
you can expect to get out of adopting such a strategy and
this is what makes it really exciting because there are
significant cost, quality, flexibility, risk and credibility
benefits that no other strategic policy is likely to be able to
match, added to which it is a great strategy to support the
growth and development of an ambitious business.
Cost
When we place part time executives we normally put them
into businesses on a part time interim basis, recognising
that unless and until one is absolutely certain they will be
appropriate in the long term, it is better not to tie oneself
into a long term arrangement. This is also fine with our
members who go into such roles because unlike most
people who are looking for long term full time roles, all our
people have made the decision to build portfolio careers
working to add value to a number of different businesses
simultaneously.
The cost benefits are multiple: firstly you only need pay for
the time you actually need the individual so there is no
wastage, it allows you to match your resource much more
precisely to you needs and workload so you can avoid the
dreaded step increase in cost against a gradual increase
in activity/revenue. Clearly as your activity levels and
revenues grow you can increase the hours of your part
timer and eventually you may reach the point where it is
sensible to replace the part timer with a full timer.
Secondly providing you do not wish to employ the part
time executive directly you can (via NXD anyway)
normally source a part time executive without any
placement fee or up-front cost. Because NXD has the
dual objective of helping SMEs achieve their objectives
and helping NXD members build portfolio careers, its
main source of revenue is from its members and so the
matching service can normally be free of charge to the
SME. So in short you can gain a top quality resource,
only pay for the time you need and not need to pay a
head hunters fee.
Thirdly, whilst you should take guidance from your
accountant and again providing you do not wish to
employ the part time executive directly, costs such as
employers NI, holiday pay, any pension costs and other
costs such as cars, medical cover etc can be avoided.
Perhaps even more importantly, if the time comes when
you no longer require the individual or you want to
replace them with someone else, you don’t have all the
normal issues and costs associated with laying someone
off.
Quality
The reality is that cost and quality always need to be
taken in conjunction with each other because what we
are all really interested in is value for money; so all the
points I have made above regarding the cost advantages
of adopting a part time strategy assume an excellent
standard of executive – but not only excellent, relevant
also.
“Impressed with NXD’s common values
and commitment to help clients, I have
found my first role a delight. The advice I
am providing has already started to show
benefit and the business is moving
forward with clear vision.”
DAVID HARDING – NXD MEMBER

Biography
Why Full Time?
10
So let’s explore this a bit further and let’s imagine a
scenario. I own and run a business, I’ve grown it from
scratch and it has now gone beyond a lifestyle business
and we have a dozen or so employees. My expertise is in
the operational side of the business and we produce an
excellent product at a competitive price. We supply both
businesses and the general public, our customer service
is first class and virtually without exception we have great
relationships and testimonials from our customers.
Our problem is that we are not particularly well known and
we are always struggling to get more business which we
need in order to provide me with a proper return for my
efforts. I really don’t have the budget to take on a sales
and marketing director but I know unless I do something I
will continue for the next few years to scrape by as I have
done for the last few.
I finally take the plunge and put out an advert for a sales
and marketing director offering a salary of £40k plus car
and normal executive benefits, I budget for a total cost for
the individual of £60k. My gross margin is 30% so I need
that individual to bring in £200k of new business over and
above what we would typically generate in a year just to
break even. The problem is, it will take a while for the
individual to settle in and then there is normally a lead
time to bringing on new business so it is likely to be at
least a year before I can form a clear view of the
performance and value of this individual. If after a year it
doesn’t appear to be working I will then have to go
through a process to remove the individual which will in all
probability include payment for a notice period. The up-
shot is that I am probably putting at risk in excess of
£100k by making this appointment which is an amount of
money that could seriously damage my business,
potentially put it under – that’s why I haven’t done it
before.
I start to receive the application forms, I am not
experienced as a recruiter, certainly not at this level and
all of a sudden (actually they come in over the period of a
month) I’ve got 250 responses and CVs to go through. It
takes me 2 weeks just to go through them and decide
which ones are of potential interest, during which time I
am neglecting the business, just doing the bare
necessities. Eventually I draw up my shortlist of 8 people
and start to make arrangement to interview them, a
month later I am down to my last 3 – during this time I
have failed to give sufficient time and focus to the
business and there are now a number of cracks showing,
worst of all we are failing to win our normal amount of
new business so our pipeline is looking a bit sick.
Following second interviews I finally decide upon the
successful candidate, it’s a good step up for the
individual involved and whilst not all the boxes were
ticked it was the best I met for the type of money we
were offering. In the end I had to go for a salary of £45k,
the car including fuel will cost about £1k per month,
pension and NI a further £1k per month, and whilst I was
hoping for a 3 month notice period I ended up agreeing
to 6 months. The £60k pa budget has now become £70k
and I have also increased my notice period cost from
circa £10-15k up to circa £25-35k.
The successful candidate is on 3 months’ notice at the
moment but manages to negotiate leaving in 6 weeks’
time but then wants to take a 2 week break before
joining. I get back to focusing on the business and trying
to build the sales pipeline again. 5 months after I placed
the initial advert my new sales and marketing director
starts.
6 months on I am starting to worry, the new sales and
marketing director talked a good talk but doesn’t appear
to be quite so good at delivering results. The pipeline that
took a hit while I was distracted during the recruitment
process hasn’t even got back to its historical norm let
alone shown the increase it needs. The director keeps
talking about discussions with potential new customers,
but actual orders don’t seem to materialise.

Biography
Why Full Time?
11
12 months on I am really worried, new business has
eventually started to come in although not to the level
needed, but worst still the business is not of the type we
want. It’s being won primarily on price so our margins are
under threat, and the type of customer is very aggressive,
doesn’t seem to value quality. The lead times being
offered are also too optimistic so we are on occasions
failing to deliver on time which is allowing our aggressive
customers scope to make claims. I am spending more and
more of my time fire fighting. I decide to sit down with the
director and have a straight conversation – now attitudes
change and the director is only interested in protecting his
(but could equally well be her) job. Now both of us, the
two most senior people in the business are locked in a
battle, sales start to suffer even more ……… and on and
on.
I am sure you get the picture, and whilst this is a fictitious
case, it is loosely based on situations that I, and I am sure
you, know of. So what’s the alternative? Well you can
always do nothing which is where many businesses are
today, scraping a living because to change the fortunes of
the business and grow it into something exciting is too
risky. But the other alternative is to take on a quality part
time executive, someone who doesn’t just talk the talk but
also walks the walk.
So if we go back to the example, my alternative is to talk
to someone like NXD who provides part time executives
and explain about my company and what I am trying to
do. We agree that to begin with we will work on just a day
a week with the option of increasing this once there is
evidence of the sales coming in. The next thing I know is
that I have 3 CVs in front of me for top quality individuals,
all have extremely strong sales and marketing experience
and qualifications, all have previously been at MD/CEO
level, all have direct experience of operating in the broad
market sector in which I operate and one very specifically
in exactly my market sector, and all to differing degrees
have contacts at a very senior level with customers,
suppliers and service providers in my sector.
I meet all 3 candidates on the same day just 10 days after
the initial contact. All 3 are good, but one stands out as
exceptional, interestingly not the one that is directly in my
market sector but one of the others. The interviews were
on Wednesday and we agree he (or she) can start on
Monday, we agree that the part time sales and marketing
director will work 2 half days a week but will also be
available by phone whenever I need him. It will cost me
£3k per month inclusive of all but travel costs which will
be reimbursed at cost and are estimated to be less than
£2k per annum. There is no contract length so I am free
to cease the arrangement whenever I want and for any
reason, all I have to do is pay up to the point I want to
cease.
I am not going to go on and say how wonderfully well the
whole thing went as that would be a bit too sickly, but I
am sure you get the point. The big point is that a real
quality executive will deliver more in a day than a
mediocre executive in a week, and if for any reason he or
she doesn’t you are not tied in to something that you
can’t easily get out of. Moreover a quality executive will
not try to sell to the wrong customers, they will ‘get’ your
market and concentrate on attracting the right customers.
Flexibility
I have covered much of the topic of flexibility earlier so
will not dwell for too long on this point, but there are
some further things to draw out.
Anyone who has operated on a formal board during a
downturn will know that what one always seeks is to be
able to flex one’s resources/costs directly in line with
one’s activity levels/sales. The problem is that a business
is made up of both fixed and variable costs, it is difficult
enough to reduce one’s variable costs directly in line with
a reduction in activity mainly because productivity tends
to suffer with lower activity levels; but it is by definition
not possible to reduce fixed costs in line with a fall in
activity – the key with fixed costs is to either eliminate
them completely or to translate them into variable costs.
This is why during this latest economic downturn you
hear so much about corporates ‘downsizing’ what they
are doing is downsizing their workforce predominantly –
and many people believe, myself included, that even
when things do pick up they will not be looking to ‘upsize’
again quickly if at all.

Biography
Why Full Time?
12
One of the other examples of the benefits of using a part
time executive in the way we are suggesting is that you
can view it as entirely a variable cost and flex the
resource/cost up or down at a moments’ notice, and when
it suits to replace it with something else you can just go
ahead and do it. Now I’m not suggesting you treat the
individual badly and without care or respect, but you can
have all the flexibility benefits and still be fair to the
individual because they will both understand and work
with you on developing the best solution for your
business.
Risk
Again the topic of risk has to a degree been covered in the
scenario detailed in “Quality” above, the first approach put
the entire business at risk if it failed, the second approach
of using a part time executive did not. Either way you don’t
want the approach to fail, but the seriousness of the
implications of failure must be taken into account when
making decisions. One often hears the term ‘calculated
risk’, we all take calculated risks where we effectively
weigh up the potential upsides if something goes well
against the potential downsides if it doesn’t. People also
often talk about not risking more money that you can
afford to lose.
Corporates in fact pay much more attention to the whole
issue of risk than do SMEs. If you ever sit on the board of
a large corporate you will find the topic of risk on every
board agenda, indeed plc’s need to be able to
demonstrate that they are carefully evaluating risks to the
business on an on-going basis. As an aside, it does lead
you to wonder what was going on in the financial sector
and particularly the big banks when most of them
effectively exposed themselves to complete ruin with their
practices over recent years, and but for the tax payer
some would no longer exist today – it also questions
whether some of the individuals concerned should have
been prosecuted as tends to be the case in the US rather
than paid off with generous pension provisions.
The upside of asking the question “can I afford to lose the
money I am putting at risk if things go wrong?” is that you
go through a very healthy check process that I would
recommend for any business. The downside is that it can
stifle creativity, innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit if
the whole approach becomes too cautious – one of the
main reasons that corporates are not as good as SMEs
at creating and innovating is that corporates are too risk
averse whereas SMEs will take more risks. So as with
just about anything in life, there needs to be a balance,
avoid unnecessary risks and be aware when you are
taking a risk that could seriously damage your business;
and in its own little way, the adoption of a part time
strategy can reduce the risk when engaging people at a
senior level.
Credibility
The final thing to mention is that engaging very high
quality part time executives increases your credibility as
a business. Other businesses will take the view that if
you have so and so on board you must be good because
they wouldn’t associate themselves with a business that
wasn’t.
Clearly however this draws out another important point
which is that you will only be successful in engaging a
quality executive if you can live up to your claims – the
engagement process is therefore very much a two way
process, you will need to sell your company to them just
as much as they need to sell their value to you.

Biography
Why Full Time?
13
PART 4 - WHAT ARE THE PRACTICALITIES
OF ADOPTING A PART TIME STRATEGY?
It’s all very well having good ideas and good strategies but
they are completely worthless unless they can be
translated into reality, and one of the big problems with
the idea of a part time strategy for senior executives is
how to do get hold of the right one(s) for your business
quickly, efficiently and cost effectively? The answer is that
it was probably very hard to do until recently, but now
NXD has added this service to its core offering along with
providing non-executives and investing directors.
I really don’t want to turn this book into a promotion of
NXD, but for this section I don’t have much option but to
use NXD as the example because the key reason that we
got involved in providing part time executives was
because no one else was doing it in a comprehensive
manner and to the right standard – so please excuse the
rather frequent reference to NXD.
So let’s look at the steps involved in adopting this
strategy. The first thing to say is that it must be a part of
your wider business strategy – if you don’t have a wider
business strategy then get one, if it’s not yet that well
defined then you can use this process to start better
defining it especially in the short to medium term (next 2 to
3 years). Step 1 – define where you want to be in 2 or 3
years’ time; step 2 – clearly understand where you are
now; step 3 – work out where you need to be in 6 months’
time in order to achieve your 2 or 3 year goal; step 4 –
detail what you need to do, including the changes in
management time and skill you need, in order to achieve
your 6 month target; step 5 – implement; step 6 –
measure results and review.
Where do you want to be?
Now I don’t want people to start worrying or feeling
inadequate because they haven’t got a fancy business
plan 50 pages long with 5 years’ worth of forecasted
figures attached to it – neither do I want to give the
impression that there is anything wrong with having such
a plan. The fact however is that such a plan will be
produced at a point in time and usually for a specific
purpose (typically for bank funding or investment or exit),
it is a document that is too big and complex to be
updated every 5 minutes and therefore gets out of date.
What I am however saying is that every business should
have a reasonably clear idea of where it is heading, so
you should have an idea of how you want to develop
your range of products and services, what markets you
want to serve, why your customers buy and will continue
to buy from you, what turnover and profit you aiming for,
what activities you wish to keep in house and which you
will outsource, and what your ultimate purpose for the
business is.
From this overall strategy/direction you can now start to
define where you want the business to be in a definitive
time period – I always recommend 2 years or 3
maximum, I believe that is as far as you can look ahead
with any degree of accuracy, personally I think detailed 5
year plans are a nonsense and usually end up being
pure fantasy. It is however possible to have a sensible
stab at the realistic turnover, margin and profit targeted
for 2 years’ time.
Where are you now?
Now that you know where you want to be in the future,
the next step is to clearly understand where you are now,
warts and all. This requires and honest view of your
current status, often it can be helpful to use the format of
a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats) analysis to carry out this part. It is also usually
very valuable to get someone to help you with this who is
not completely immersed in the business. If you have a
non-executive this is an ideal thing to involve them in,
one of the main roles of a non-executive is company
strategy and so involvement in the whole process would
be recommended. If you don’t have a non-executive then
it’s worth trying to involve someone who is independent
just to give you an unbiased, uncluttered view of your
company – NXD can help you find someone to do this if
necessary.
Now that you know both where you want to be in 2 years’
time and where you are now, the next step is to work out
what you need to do in the next 6 months in order to be
on track to achieving the 2 year target. This step will at
times result in you going back and adjusting the 2 year
target (either up or down, but usually down) because you
realise that the progress required in 6 months is either
too demanding or too cautious.

Biography
Why Full Time?
14
What do you need to do?
Now comes the interesting bit. With a realistic view of
what you need to do in the next 6 months, you can start to
plan in real detail how to get there and the key facilitator
will always be management skills and resources. This is
where you work out whether you need more or less
management in particular areas of the business and
ideally the quality/seniority of the role(s). By including part
time executives in the mix, you take away the need to
work in whole number and open up the use of decimals.
So your need for the next 6 months might be for example
1.0 Production Director, 0.2 Finance Director and 0.4
Sales Director.
How do you implement?
Once you’ve decided what you need to do the next stage
is implementation, so now you need to go out and get the
right people. The following tips may be helpful:
 do be mindful of time, ideally you need the people
quickly so it’s important that you use a process
that is not longwinded and you ‘fish’ for people
who are available immediately. Where you have
decided to take on board someone full time as per
the example above or a Production Director, you
may decide to take on a part time interim
immediately while you search for the right person
to take it on a full time permanent basis;
 do beware of paying up-front placement fees for
finding the people, there are times when it might
be the right thing to do, but you can waste a lot of
money this way and especially so if you are
regularly ‘tweaking’ your executive team;
 do have a clear budget for each of the roles and
don’t wander too far from your planned spend.
That is not saying be inflexible, in fact quite the
reverse, it is saying be flexible but remain within
your overall budget. For example if you spend
more on one role than you planned, spend less on
another and as a general rule adjust the time you
have someone rather than the quality of the
person to make it fit within your budget, quality
ahead of quantity. So in the example above, if you
can’t afford the Sales Director you want for 2 days
a week, start off with a day and a half. Another
way of handling the issue of getting the right
quality of person and making it fit within your
budget is to have an element of the fees you pay
the person as ‘success fees’, ie with the Sales
Director example, pay a reduced daily fee that
fits within your budget but offer an additional
success fee which is contingent on achieving
sales above forecast and is thus self-financing;
 do look for attitude and outlook as well as (in fact
I always look at them ahead of) their background,
experience and skill-set. I always view meeting a
candidate as being primarily about trying to
understand what makes them tick, ie their
attitude and outlook, because I have already
filtered the CVs to make sure I only meet people
who have the right kind of background,
experience and skill-set;
 do not look to clone yourself, but at the same
time make sure that you bring on board people
who you can work with, personal chemistry
matters;
 do not be afraid of taking on board people who
are better than you, you will learn from them and
they will help your business but don’t be
overawed by them and always remember you
are the boss;
 do not look to maintain the cultural status quo,
businesses need to evolve and develop and the
culture of the company needs to change as it
grows, nevertheless it is equally important to
avoid a complete culture clash because that will
be damaging;
 do not abdicate your responsibility and
accountability for taking on the right people. By
all means take sound advice and guidance, but
don’t let anyone else make the decisions. I know
of people who use reputable, expensive
recruitment consultants mainly so that they can
effectively leave it to them to make the decision.
By all means use a recruitment consultant or a
company like NXD to put a shortlist of people in
front of you and save you from doing all the
legwork yourself – this is good efficiency and will
help with the point about needing to be a quick
process – but you need to decide which from the
shortlist is right for you and if it comes to it and
none of them fit the bill then you need to say so.

Biography
Why Full Time?
15
Measure and review
The final stage of the process is to measure and review.
As with any business activity, you not only have to plan to
do something, you need to check that your planned
results are achieved, take into account any over or under
achievement, and then set about planning the next stage.
It is just as important to recognise the things you have
achieved as well as the things you haven’t achieved.
The two most common pitfalls at this stage are either a
failure to properly measure and carry out the review at all
or a fixation with the aspects of the plan that have not
been achieved or fully achieved which can be
demoralising.
The failure to properly measure and review is purely down
to discipline. The danger is that if you miss this step your
business will tend to just meander along and you won’t
have the sharpness and the awareness of what is working
and what isn’t working to deliver the full potential of your
business. The fixation with the failures can often ignore
the fact that great and profitable advances have been
made in other key areas, the reality and we need to
remember it is that very few plans are achieved in their
entirety, and on the occasions they are it is normally
because they were soft plans in the first place.
The review phase then leads back into the next planning
step and we are back at Step 1 reviewing and updating
where we want to be in 2 to 3 years’ time.
Before we leave this topic I want to make one thing very
clear, I am suggesting the 6 step cycle outlined above
because your part time strategy (if you adopt one) must fit
within your Human Resources strategy which in turn must
fit within your Company strategy, in other words you
shouldn’t do things in isolation or in a vacuum. The danger
is that people get put off because it starts to become too
complicated and too bureaucratic – so let’s be clear it
doesn’t and shouldn’t have to be, certainly not in a small
business. For example, when you define where you want
to be in 2 years’ time, you can put as many or as few
objectives in there as you wish, you may simply want to
define the turnover and profit you wish to be achieving.
There are 2 golden rules: firstly, don’t make the process
more complicated than you can handle, keep it simple;
and secondly don’t run before you can walk, start off
planning and measuring just the few most important
things and as time passes and you become comfortable
with the process, start to add more specific objectives.

Biography
Why Full Time?
16
SUMMARY
So to summarise my answer to the “Why full time?”
question – it is a nonsense to concentrate solely on
employing full time senior executives; virtually every SME
in the UK will have circumstances where a part time
executive would be advantageous; the benefits of using
part time executive are compelling not just from a cost
point of view but also from a quality, flexibility and risk
point of view; and the practicalities of adopting such a
strategy need not be complicated or difficult.

Biography
Why Full Time?
17
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen is the founder and managing director of NXD,
having taken it from an idea back in late 2007, to reality in
late 2009, to its current state of being a significant and
growing national presence in the area of providing non-
executives, part time executives and investing directors
into the SME sector.
NXD is a membership organisation comprised of current
and former Managing Directors and Chief Executives who
are committed to building portfolio careers helping small
and medium sized organisations achieve their goals and
realise their full potential. It is an organisation committed
to creating value rather than exploiting value and is
capable of providing support to any SME in any sector in
the UK and on occasions beyond.
Stephen’s background before NXD was in supply chains
and logistics where he has many years of practical senior
level experience. He has been on the boards of large
retail businesses and managing director of 2 national
logistics companies. He has provided logistics and
supply chain solutions to many leading companies both
in the UK and Europe.
Stephen continues to devote some of his time to the
logistics sector, but through his activities with NXD has
really enjoyed working across diverse sectors with small
and medium sized organisations generally and especially
with second, third and fourth generation family owned
businesses.
To contact Stephen – stephen.barter@nxdservices.com
Stephen Barter
Founder & Managing Director of NXD

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