A client called us recently because their Director of HR was leaving. She had been with the company for several years, and the initial request was straightforward: they wanted us to find another Director of HR.
At least, that was the plan when we started the conversation.
As we dug into the role, we realized the company’s HR needs had changed. Over the previous few years, the Director had done a lot of the heavy lifting. She had put better processes in place, cleaned up policies and procedures, worked through complicated employee issues, and generally helped the company get its HR house in order.
Now, they needed something different.
They still needed someone with solid HR experience and good judgment, but they didn’t necessarily need another Director. They needed someone who was comfortable being more hands-on with the day-to-day work and willing to be in the trenches.
Replace the Work, Not the Person
In other words, they didn’t need to replace the Director. They needed to replace the work.
Once we looked at it that way, the profile changed. Instead of automatically searching for another Director of HR, we talked about hiring an HR Manager who had enough experience to operate independently but still enjoyed being in the trenches.
This opened up a different candidate pool. There are experienced HR professionals who are very good at what they do but aren’t necessarily looking for the biggest title or a role where they’re several layers removed from the day-to-day work. For the right person, this could actually be a more appealing job — a chance to own the function outright rather than manage it from a distance.
The Question to Ask Before Every Search
Had the client simply handed us the departing employee’s job description and said, “Find us another one,” we could have done exactly that. But they might have ended up hiring more seniority than they actually needed, and just as importantly, someone whose expectations for the role didn’t match the work that needed to be done.
And this isn’t unique to HR. Jobs change as companies change. Responsibilities get added, teams grow, systems improve, and sometimes work ends up with someone simply because they’re good at it. When that person leaves, you don’t necessarily need to recreate everything that accumulated on their plate over the years.
That conversation changed the search before it even started. And it’s a good example of why every replacement search should begin with a simple question:
