Interim managers willing to take pay cut to work at SMEs

Directors and senior managers are willing to take a pay cut of up to 50% to work at a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), according to a survey of interim managers by Interim Partners.

The research found interim managers are willing to take a cut from the £757 per day they average at FTSE 350 companies, to £350 per day to work at an SME.

The research also found 90% of interims would willingly accept part of their payment based on performance.

Of those, 82% would be prepared to have over 10% of their fee performance-based, while 39% of whom were willing to have more than 20% of their fee based on performance.

Doug Baird, managing director at Interim Partners, said: “Interims are confident they deliver value to the businesses they work for so they are often happy to take some performance-related pay.”

“In the case of a small business, using performance-related pay could be a great way to get the high-quality management expertise of an interim on board without frontloading the business with staffing costs it cannot afford.

Sign up to our newsletters

Receive news and guidance on a range of HR issues direct to your inbox

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

“Paying someone out of increased profits has an obvious attraction.”

Read more articles on performance related pay