Healthcare / Talent Pipelining
Healthcare Talent Pipelining and Succession Planning
How a retained research partnership saved a major UK private healthcare provider around £660,000, from head office and clinical hires to board-level succession.
The results
A £660,000 saving on fees
A major UK private healthcare provider worked with Talent Acumen on a retained basis for three and a half years from 2016. Across all the searches in that time, the hires had combined salaries of around £4.5 million. At a typical 25% search fee, that would have cost around £1,125,000. Our fees came to around £465,000, a saving of around £660,000, while building talent pools it owned and could return to at any time.
At a glance
| Client | A major UK private healthcare provider, with hospitals, clinical services and a central head office |
| Partnership | Retained for three and a half years from 2016, working as an extension of the in-house resourcing team |
| Services | Talent search, talent pipelining, succession planning and talent insight |
| Functions | Finance, IT, commercial, clinical, operations and the board |
| Fee model | Paid for our time, never a percentage of salary |
| Outcome | Around £660,000 saved against a 25% search fee, with thousands of pre-screened candidates owned by the client |
| Area | What the client gained |
|---|---|
| Talent search | Significant hires in finance, IT, commercial, clinical and operations, saving thousands of pounds on each |
| Talent pipelining | Hundreds of suitable people identified and pre-screened, which remained the client's property for future use with no additional fees |
| Talent insight | Bespoke projects on organisational design, external salary benchmarks and the best locations for new market entries |
| Flexibility | A service shaped to what the client needs. Where the in-house team can engage the market itself, we simply help find the right people, reducing external spend further |
Savings figures are Talent Acumen's own estimates, calculated against typical search and agency fees. They have not been independently verified.
Executive-level hires
12 executive-level hires, across head office and clinical
Our reach is multi-functional. The same partnership delivered commercial, finance, operational and clinical leaders.
Sales Director
Hospital Director
Regional Operations Director
Corporate Affairs Director
IT Business Delivery Director
Head of Category Management, Primary and Secondary Services
Head of Category Management, Tertiary and Specialist Services
Head of Commercial Development
Strategic Client Director
National Theatre Lead
Group Financial Controller
Commercial & Category Development Director, Hospitals
How the client saved: Talent Acumen's estimates
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Combined basic salaries of the 12 executive-level hires | c.£1,160,000 |
| Talent Acumen fees | c.£110,000 |
| Saving against a 25% search or agency fee | £180,000 |
| Saving against a 30% search fee | £238,000 |
| Saving against a 33% search fee | £272,800 |
Board-level succession planning
A ready-made pipeline for the board
Alongside live hiring, we mapped and engaged board-level candidates so the client was ready when its most senior roles opened.
Chief Financial Officer
Group HR Director
Group CIO
Group CFO
Chief Commercial Officer
COO & Deputy Chief Executive
Pharmacy Director
Chief People Officer
Regional Finance Director, Europe & China
How the client saves: Talent Acumen's estimates
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Talent Acumen fees for the programme | £59,200 |
| Average 30% to 33% search fee for one board hire | c.£60,000 to £66,000 |
| Potential saving on each further hire from the pipeline | c.£60,000 to £66,000 per hire |
The client could expand the pipeline at any time using its own search criteria.
What we can do for you
Three ways we help
Each service can be used on its own or combined, for an immediate need or to plan ahead.
Talent search
Hiring key talent for an immediate need.
Quality hires at a reduced cost and time to hire
Often niche skill sets or hard-to-fill roles
Thorough market coverage, leaving no stone unturned
Added-value market insight
Talent pipelining
A candidate pool to tap into for succession planning.
Multiple hires within one transparent project
Pre-qualified candidates who can move quickly into active recruitment
An understanding of motivation, mobility, perception and pay
Talent insight
Evidence to inform decisions before you hire.
Organisational design: structures, key people, reporting lines and locations
Remuneration surveys: real-time pay data at the job levels you need
Perception audits: what the market really thinks of you
Location insights: where the talent is
At no additional cost
All candidates are your intellectual property.
Added-value market insight on how you are perceived, the depth of talent pools and remuneration.
A deep understanding of your business. A long-term retained partnership means we know the strategy, EVP and culture, and that shows in how we attract and screen candidates.
Why we are different
How we work, and how we charge
We do not rely on job boards or a candidate database. Every project starts with fresh research into your market.
| What it means for you | |
|---|---|
| Methodology | A mix of telephone and web-based research, built on more than 40 years of combined research expertise rather than out-of-date online profiles |
| Passive marketplace | Many suitable candidates are not actively looking for a new role and cannot all be reached through job boards, LinkedIn or databases. We find the people others can't |
| Multi-faceted | Any geography, department or specialism. Whether you need a vet or a CEO, a Finance Manager or a Chemical Engineer, we can reach them |
| Real-time insight | Your opportunities are unique, so we will never send you CVs you have already seen from several agencies |
| Partnership | We support your employer brand in whatever way helps, whether pipelining for the future or hiring for an immediate need |
| Cost model | You pay for our time, never a percentage of salary. You know your costs up front, and as many hires as you need can come from one project |
| Reporting | Market and organisational insight at a very competitive rate, and all the intelligence gathered on every project is yours to keep |
In the client's words
A trusted and respected partner
This testimonial was provided by the client during the partnership and reflects the relationship at that time.
"We have worked with Talent Acumen for the past 3 years on a retained basis and their quality has always been of an extremely high standard, not just the candidates received, but the internal stakeholder management, communication and reporting. In reality, they work as an extension of our direct resourcing function, and have immersed themselves to truly reflect our brand and values of the organisation.
They provide us with individuals we cannot access in the public domain and we continue to benefit from work they do long after a project has finished due to the talent pipeline they provide. The team are highly personable and very flexible to the business' changing needs in this time of transition."
"Talent Acumen is very much a trusted and respected partner and we work together in an open and challenging way. I would highly recommend them."
Talent and Resourcing Director, Major UK Private Healthcare Provider