Partner – Organisation and Talent — Industrial-Equipment Business

The mandate

An organisation-advisory team is supporting an industrial-equipment business of approximately 1,950 employees and material partners whose plant productivity remains weak after repeated lean initiatives. Interviews suggest that supervisors cannot resolve engineering changes, planners lack authority over priorities and scarce specialists are pulled between new production, rework and field issues. The incumbent Partner is leaving for a portfolio career. An urgent replacement will take over the client work and build a distinctive UK industrial-organisation proposition.

The Partner reports to the Global Managing Partner and regional partner council and owns client relationships, diagnosis, intervention design, engagement quality, economics and team development. The client owns all employment and operating decisions. Advice must be grounded in work and comply with consultation, equality, privacy and representation obligations; the practice will not disguise predetermined reductions as organisation design.

Productivity diagnosis begins at the decision interface. The team will observe how a late drawing, failed inspection, absent tool or customer expedite moves through the plant. It will identify who has information, who can decide, which risks require escalation and how long each hand-off consumes. Span and layer data may support the analysis but cannot substitute for understanding work.

Frontline roles need feasible accountabilities. A supervisor cannot own output if maintenance, quality and planning decisions sit elsewhere without response standards. Equally, expanding authority without competence or independent technical controls is unsafe. The Partner will design decision rights, service expectations and escalation together, then test them on live operating cases.

Skill availability must be measured by shift and task. Aggregate headcount can conceal missing metrology, programming, welding or commissioning expertise at the constraint. The advisory team will map certified capability, learning time and succession, separating recruitment need from avoidable scheduling or deployment failure. Contractor use will include supervision and knowledge-retention consequences.

Leadership assessment will use operational evidence. Popularity, tenure or presentation performance cannot determine who leads recovery. Candidates should handle a simulated shortage, deviation or schedule conflict and show how they use facts and involve people. Any selection recommendation must be documented and independently reviewed for fairness.

Performance and reward must reinforce the redesigned work. Output-only incentives can encourage oversized batches or deferred problem reporting, while individual engineering targets can worsen hand-offs. The Partner will help the client define shared plant outcomes, retain independent quality and safety judgement and ensure supervisors are not financially penalised for escalating a legitimate constraint.

The exiting partner has strong client trust and will provide a short handover. The replacement must retain continuity without defending every existing hypothesis. The firm expects the Partner to spend substantial time at operating sites and build a team able to combine organisation, workforce and plant-performance expertise.

What you will own

• Diagnose productivity through work, decision flow, capability and leadership behaviour.
• Design practical accountabilities across plant, engineering, quality, planning and maintenance.
• Build shift-level skills, succession and deployment plans for production constraints.
• Lead fair leadership assessment and selection with explicit evidence.
• Support frontline teams as new decision rights are tested on real work.
• Govern engagement scope, economics, data protection and quality.
• Validate people outcomes alongside throughput, quality and safety.
• Originate and develop UK industrial-organisation work from proven results.

The first 12 months

In the first 30 days, secure client and team continuity, observe priority value streams and test the current organisation hypothesis against recent delays. Clarify adviser and client decision rights and correct any premature role conclusions. Agree a workforce and leadership evidence plan with employee-relations input.

By month six, implement accountabilities in pilot areas, assess priority leaders and close critical shift-level skill gaps through deployment, learning or recruitment. Coach managers through live operating decisions and measure whether escalation time falls. Translate the approach into a quality-controlled practice offer without reusing confidential client content.

At twelve months, help the client improve conforming output by 15%, reduce cross-functional decision delay by half and establish qualified cover for 90% of constraint-critical roles. Leadership changes should withstand fairness review, with no substantiated process grievance. The Partner should originate at least £5 million of advisory revenue at target contribution and retain 90% of the core team.

What the partner council will measure

• Organisation choices derived from actual decisions and work.
• Frontline accountability matched by authority, competence and support.
• Scarce capability visible by shift and constraint.
• Leadership selection supported by relevant observed evidence.
• Plant outcomes sustained after adviser intensity reduces.
• Strong client trust, economics and a developing advisory bench.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in organisation, talent, industrial operations or consulting, with significant UK manufacturing exposure. You have changed plant accountabilities and leadership while preserving independent safety and quality authority. General culture, engagement or executive-search experience alone is insufficient.

Your evidence should include personal origination and delivery of more than £20 million cumulative advisory revenue or comparable internal transformation value. You can quantify a decision-flow improvement, a critical-skill intervention and a leadership selection that changed plant performance. Experience with represented workforces and UK consultation is required.

Compensation and terms

The base range is £210,000–280,000 plus annual incentive linked to client outcomes, engagement quality, contribution, origination and talent. This onsite Manchester advisory role reports to the Global Managing Partner and regional partner council and requires UK site travel. Client portability and start conditions require conflicts clearance.

Confidentiality

The advisory firm, client, plant data, employee cases and partner transition remain confidential. Detailed information follows suitability, client consent, independence review and signed undertakings. Applicants must not contact possible clients or employees to identify the role.