On Today's Menu: Searchcomplete

When you're a supplier to some of the world's largest restaurant chains and food companies, you not only have to recruit top candidates for your management team, but you also need to integrate them into your organization as quickly as possible -- especially when you're making international acquisitions.

That's the challenge that faced HPR Partners, a Lisle, Ill., food processor and distributor with more than 2,200 employees and operations in the United States and Asia. HPR Partners recently needed to find a chief operating officer and chief financial officer for one of its subsidiaries, at a time when the company was expanding abroad and members of top management were trying to juggle demanding travel schedules.

Kevin Duffy, chief operating officer of HPR Bakers, a division of HPR Partners, was chief human resources officer at the time.

"These were important hires for us, people who could take us to the next level in our international expansion, and we wanted to make sure they received the appropriate support in their first few months on the job," says Duffy.

The company's expansion plans required Duffy and other senior executives to spend a great deal of time traveling. He was relieved to discover that WJM Associates could help orient the new executives to the responsibilities and culture of their new company through a service called SearchComplete™. For the same fee as a traditional executive search, SearchComplete™ provides clients with recruitment, assessment and onboard coaching of the final candidate.

WJM Associates provided the new executives with a coach who himself had held senior corporate positions. "The coach met with me as head of HR to clearly identify what we expected from these new members of our management team," says Duffy. "Then he met individually with the two new executives and helped orient them to our company.

WJM Associates' coach worked with the new executives on their assimilation into HPR Partners for several months. " The mere fact that the coach was there and available for that kind of assistance was critical to their successful orientation to our company," says Duffy.