What the FCA’s Pensions Regulatory Priorities report means for pensions providers
Financial services operational and compliance leaders face a constant need to respond to relentless
12/03/26
Read more
75/25 resourcing model, the new strategic imperative for financial services
Financial services operational and compliance leaders face a constant need to respond to relentless regulatory changes, manage complex remediation projects, and drive operational transformation – while controlling costs and mitigating risk.
The traditional approach has been to build large, permanent teams sized to handle changes and peaks in demand. This approach is quickly becoming a legacy model that creates competitive drag and strategic inflexibility.
Forward-thinking leaders are recognising that true resilience is not about fixed capacity but strategic flexibility. That’s why they’re adopting a deliberate 75/25 operating model, which embraces a core team of approximately 75% permanent staff and a 25% agile, on-demand capability. This approach should not be seen as a compromise; it’s an essential strategic adaptation that drives competitive advantage in fast-paced environments, enabling firms to scale expertise and delivery power precisely when needed.
The hidden risk of 100% capacity
The conventional wisdom of staffing for peak demand is often a strategic error that creates significant structural challenges. While intended to ensure a firm is always prepared, building a permanent team sized for the worst-case scenario introduces inefficiency and inflexibility. The key risks of this approach include:
- High fixed cost that persists even when workloads reduce.
- Underutilised specialist skills outside of peak programmes.
- Slower response to regulatory change and remediation demands.
- Leadership gaps during periods of transformation or heightened scrutiny.
By maintaining a leaner core team, businesses can avoid these structural inefficiencies and build a more adaptable cost base.
75/25 model forms a deliberate strategy
Adopting a 75/25 resourcing model is a conscious operating choice, not simply a contingency plan to fill unexpected gaps. It represents a fundamental mindset shift, viewing interim resources as a planned, agile component of the organisational structure, rather than a last-minute fix.
This model creates a powerful synergy: the 75% core provides organisational stability and institutional knowledge, while the 25% flexible layer provides the dynamic capability to seize opportunities and mitigate emergent risks. The core team of permanent staff deeply understands the business, its culture, and its risk frameworks, providing essential continuity. The 25% flexible capacity, in turn, provides the strategic advantage, allowing the firm to inject specialist skills and leadership at critical moments without carrying long-term overhead.
Deploying "surgical strikes" of expertise for maximum impact
The real power of the 75/25 model lies in deploying interim leaders and specialist teams at moments of greatest impact. These roles are not needed on a permanent basis, but are operationally critical when required, enabling the specialist to engage and deliver value from day one. Areas of strategic interim expertise include:
- Change and transformation leads: These specialist leaders provide immediate, experienced leadership for large-scale, complex initiatives. They take ownership from the outset to drive organisation-wide change across people, process, and technology, ensuring programmes deliver measurable value while balancing the pace of delivery with regulatory, risk, and governance requirements.
- Senior compliance leaders and SMEs: During critical compliance moments, interim leaders like a Chief Risk Officer (CRO) or Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) offer immediate credibility and strategic oversight. They are introduced to address regulatory findings, strengthen compliance frameworks, or support leadership transitions, allowing the firm to scale its expertise without permanently increasing headcount.
- Project delivery teams: Firms can rapidly mobilise entire project teams, including project managers, business analysts, data analysts, team leaders and quality control specialists – to scale up existing teams, or execute remediation or transformation programmes. This model allows the firm’s fixed teams to remain focused on business-as-usual activity, while ensuring projects are fully staffed to meet milestones without the cost of a permanent delivery team between major initiatives.
"TCC delivered us a team of brilliant people. The tools and processes they created and the rapport they built with the internal team, have been fantastic. We couldn’t have delivered this programme without them."
How to implement the agile resourcing model
Successful implementation requires more than just a strategic decision; it demands a practical framework to integrate flexible resources seamlessly. To make the 75/25 model work, firms should follow a clear, structured approach:
- Define the core roles required to sustain business-as-usual operations and risk management.
- Identify which leadership and specialist roles are cyclical or project-driven and are therefore suitable for interim support.
- Build trusted partnerships with specialist interim providers, such as TCC Group, who deeply understand the financial services landscape.
- Enable rapid onboarding and provide governance for interim leaders and teams to ensure they can deliver value quickly while aligning to the firm’s culture and controls. Onboarding can be delivered via your internal team or by your strategic resourcing partner.
A smarter way to scale
In an environment of constant regulatory evolution and operational change, the most resilient organisations are those that can scale leadership, expertise and delivery at speed, without locking in unnecessary fixed costs and engaging in lengthy recruitment cycles. The traditional staffing model for peak capacity is a legacy approach that creates competitive drag and strategic inflexibility.
Operating with 75% fixed capacity and 25% agile interim resourcing provides the optimal blend of stability and responsiveness. This means firms can protect their core operational integrity while confidently deploying the right people with the right expertise at the right time – building a smarter, more resilient organisation.
Right people. Right outcome. First time.
Contact us to explore how agile interim resourcing can strengthen your operational resilience!