Ten tips for getting the most from your interim manager

franzen — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 03:00:00 +0000

A change within your organisation can create the need for an outside expert. That might be the case if one of your managers leaves suddenly, or if a thorough reorganisation is called for. How do you make the best use of your interim?

1. Map out what you need
First establish whether you really need an interim manager, or whether the required skills and knowledge are already present in your organisation. Then set out precisely what you want to bring your interim in to do.

2. Draw up a profile
What is your interim manager going to do? What qualities and competencies does your ideal candidate have? Do you need someone who knows your sector inside out, or rather someone with a broad and fresh perspective?

3. Choose your agency with care
Engage an agency with a good reputation. Ask fellow business owners and check references online. Look too at whether the agency can offer enough candidates who meet your need.

4. Do not take too long over the selection process
The reason you need an interim is in all likelihood urgent, so do not deliberate endlessly. Listen to your instinct and get the interim working as soon as possible.

5. Do not be startled by their openness
Interims have no emotional attachment to your organisation, and will therefore say plainly and far sooner how things stand, which staff would be better off leaving and what changes are needed. Do not let that alarm you.

6. Work together
Set the objective and the timeframe of the assignment together. Meet regularly and adjust where necessary.

7. Focus on the first few days
An interim has five days to lay a solid foundation, to find out what your requirements are, what needs doing and what is possible. This opening period is crucial. Assignments that fail can almost always be traced back to a poor start.

8. Explain to your staff what the interim is there to do
Be clear about the interim’s role and the temporary nature of the position. Make sure your staff are behind the interim and see their presence as a positive. Your people can often learn useful things from an interim, and they go on benefiting from that long after the interim has gone (and so do you).

9. Do not compare the interim’s fee with your permanent staff’s salaries
The cost of an interim may look high, but remember that it is all-inclusive. You do not have to account for secondary employment benefits, pension contributions or holiday pay.

Het bericht Ten tips for getting the most from your interim manager verscheen eerst op Franzen.

Engagement without a third party

franzen — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 23:40:00 +0000

For some years now there has been uncertainty about engaging interim staff and how that relates to the question of false self-employment. Bringing in interim staff regularly raises questions about the working relationship between schools or companies and the self-employed people they hire. The DBA Act (Deregulering Beoordeling Arbeidsrelaties, the Dutch law on the assessment of employment relationships) of 2016 was meant to curb false self-employment. The DBA Act is what we are dealing with at present. To date it has barely been enforced. The intention is to lift the enforcement moratorium on 1 January 2025.
From that point the tax authority will again be able to enforce in all cases, retroactively to the date the moratorium is lifted. At the moment it can only do so where there is bad faith or where it has issued a specific instruction. Which criteria the tax authority will enforce against is not yet clear. Case law will play a part in this too, and it stresses that what actually happens in practice outweighs the wording of the contract. Various factors may matter, such as the nature and duration of the work, the way it is directed, and the degree of independence.

One of the requirements the DBA Act sets is that the client and the interim worker record their collaboration in a model agreement approved by the tax authority. The tax authority will check whether the work is genuinely being carried out in line with the provisions of that agreement. Franzen Consultancy always works with the most recent model agreements.

In the second week of June there will be another information afternoon on enforcement of the DBA Act.

Het bericht Engagement without a third party verscheen eerst op Franzen.

Interim management: articles | Franzen Consultancy

Ten tips for getting the most from your interim manager

Engagement without a third party