When Coping Isn’t Sustainable: A Professional Body’s Decision to Use Our Temporary Support

On paper, everything looked fine. But internally, pressure was building for this high-profile Professional Body.

The organisation was a well-established Professional Body with a strong reputation, steady membership numbers, and a respected leadership team. There were no major restructures planned, no headline-grabbing projects, and no immediate crises. But internally, pressure was building.

It started with membership.

A combination of increased enquiries, more complex member needs, and a growing expectation for faster, more personalised service meant the membership team was stretched thin. The work was getting done, just about,  but response times were slipping, backlogs were forming, and experienced team members were spending more time firefighting than improving processes.

At the same time, finance was feeling its own strain.

The finance team was managing end-of-year pressures, alongside a systems change that had taken longer than expected to bed in. Key individuals were covering multiple responsibilities, reconciliations were becoming slower, and senior leaders were increasingly being pulled into operational detail instead of focusing on strategy and governance.

No one wanted to call it a problem.

The organisation had coped before. People were committed. Everyone was “just busy”.

But leadership recognised a familiar warning sign:

When capable teams are permanently operating at capacity, risk quietly increases - to service quality, to staff wellbeing, and ultimately to member trust.

The decision to bring in our temporary support

Rather than rushing into permanent hires or asking teams to “push through”, the organisation chose a different approach.

They stepped back and asked:

  • Where is pressure genuinely temporary rather than structural?
  • What work needs experienced hands immediately, without a long onboarding curve?
  • How can we stabilise delivery without increasing long-term fixed cost?

The answer was targeted temporary support.

A senior manager spoke with Anna, and a short-term professionals were brought into both the membership and finance teams, with clearly defined remits:

  • In membership, to manage day-to-day demand, clear backlogs, and free up permanent staff to focus on service improvement and member engagement
  • In finance, to provide additional capacity around reporting, reconciliations and transition work, reducing dependency on senior leaders for operational tasks

Crucially, these were not junior stopgaps. They were experienced temporary professionals who understood regulated, membership-led environments and could integrate quickly without disruption.

The outcome?

The impact was felt faster than expected.

Within weeks:

  • Response times in the membership team improved
  • Pressure on core team members eased
  • Finance processes stabilised and deadlines were met without escalation
  • Senior leaders regained time and headspace

Perhaps most importantly, the organisation avoided making re-active permanent hires under pressure.

The temporary support created space:

  • To properly assess longer-term resourcing needs
  • To redesign roles where necessary
  • And to make permanent hiring decisions from a position of control rather than urgency

When the temporary assignments concluded, the organisation was left in a stronger position than when the pressure first emerged - with clearer processes, more resilient teams, and no long-term cost commitments that didn’t align to strategy.

The wider lesson

For membership organisations, pressure often builds quietly.

  • Because teams are committed.
  • Because service matters.
  • Because “coping” becomes the norm.

This professional body’s experience reinforced a simple truth:

Temporary support isn’t about fixing failure -  it’s about protecting performance.

Used well, it allows organisations to respond to peaks in demand, manage change, and safeguard member experience without compromising long-term sustainability.