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Hats off to all the night shift people!
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Brisbane hotels - Hilton or Sofitel?
Best consulting firms without the massive ego?
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1) salary + bonuses (mid year bonuses would help with the motivation imo). Don’t need gift packages or random things that people won’t use. Put that $$ into comp. When evaluating, don’t penalize people for taking vacation. OOO days should not impact utilization metrics if they are within a reasonable range (this threshold should be clearly defined)
2) Anonymous surveys twice a year can give a sense of morale. Upward feedback can help identify issues in leadership style or expectations
3) More transparency in salary range amongst peers
All of this is helpful M1, thank you.
Curious if you think anonymous surveys should be wholly open ended or have a few targeted Qs around potential pinch points?
If you’re tapped out that’s okay too.
1) Fixed PTO, rather than “unlimited” PTO. Really helps us workaholics that otherwise wouldn’t take any due to utilization concerns. (EDIT: Just had an idea—perhaps variable PTO wherein people would earn a day for every so many chargeable hours?)
2) Amount of PTO taken. Time off should be just as important as time on.
3) Amount of time wasted on inefficient administrative tasks—T&E reporting, billing, internal acceptance processes, L&D, etc. (I really like E1’s suggestion btw—the less time billable people have to waste on non-billable work vs outsourcing it to cost centers, the better)
1) Money
2) Cash
3) Dinero
Heard, heard, and heard.
Don’t work or ask your people to work on weekend, holidays or vacation. Don’t sell working extra hours as “going above and beyond” . And pay them well
It’s not rocket science . People usually don’t want free lunch, ping pong table or whatever corporates come up with. They want to do the job and enjoy life
Absolutely get rid of pls fix BS.
Messages received and thank you C1 and EY1.
4 day work week. Or at least meeting free Fridays. Setting a requirement that employees are expected to take at least 2 weeks off a year. All other PTOs will not be capped if over 2 weeks. Setting expectations that no calls before x in the morning and after x in the afternoon. Are you thinking fully remote or hybrid?
Love to hear it D1, thank you.
Lunch is explicitly included in your work day and is billed. Everything firm related is penciled into you schedule and it all counts towards your utilization rate. Sick of these meetings where I go in and suprise suprise they don’t count towards my 9 billed hours for the day. Same with BD or other stuff. So I have to work even longer. Stop this acting BS. Why am I acting manager but being paid the level below? Start hiring enough people.
Got it and thank you C2.
Curious if you have thoughts on identifying when enough people is enough? Have primarily seen this come down to better managerial skills (vice workload calculations).
Earnest ask and if you’re tapped out that’s ok.
1. If the firm espouses that we hire "the best and brightest", then pay like it.
2. Change utilization to consider pto, training etc. Set realistic targets that support wlb by level and consider level commitments outside of chargeable work. (Charge hours + innovation) / (2080 - PTO - firm holidays - training)
3. Charge clients what our time is worth to support all this. Fire underperforming clients that burn out our people and pay low rates.
There's no singular answer to that question, but you probably need to think about it like a balanced scorecard. Realized rph and other financial metrics would surely be on there, but we'd need soft factors like staff feedback (we all survey our clients, but how many of us survey our staff about our clients?), opportunities for staff development, opportunities for our staff to perform level appropriate work, opportunities for the firm to develop new services or quals, and client profile. If we have more than a couple red flags across those categories that make a "good" client for our firm, we need to have the courage to help that client find a new service provider.
Our people matter and we owe them good opportunities to use their skills, not just to have them punching the clock and grinding it out on anything that keeps the lights on.
Also employ enough support staff (comms, IT, admins, GCO, etc.) so that they are not stretched so thin. Stop the self-serve culture and cutting support or be willing to accept the fact that your requests can’t be fulfilled or that you’re paying client facing individuals to do non-billable tasks.
And make sure your non-client servers also have career paths and competitive wages.
This is super important for campus recruiting efforts especially
Genuinely curious about what answers you'll get. When we did this internally it was basically "less work for the same money"
Rising Star
Tbh it’s less about the amount of work and more about the money.
Have you considered giving bonuses on their billable hours? When my company did that for 2 years I loved it, but they capped it at 200% bonus for 40 hours billed. I would’ve been billing 80 a week for like a 400-500% bonus. And that would’ve benefited everybody, me obviously, my clients who would get more work done which they didn’t have people to do, and the company gets the revenue still because those extra hours from me are huge profits
Being a top performer shouldn't include working endless hours. It's not that we want to "be paid more for doing less work," it's just an ineffective way to work and shows poor planning.
Protect the employees vacations, weekends, and evenings. No job is more important than everyone's personal life outside of work. We aren't saving lives here.
Don't sell "wellbeing" as a company benefit if you don't actually mean it. Wellbeing isn't just an office pizza party. Encourage people to take time off of work, take breaks during the day, etc.
Heard and received, thank you SC2.
1) company paid car
2) number of PTO days taken
3) whats happening at home, not just the 'doing great, thanks'.
See any benefit (assuming company culture felt welcoming / safe) in having a data point around number of days since last PTO taken?
Thank you P1 (and if you’re tapped out no worries)
Maybe not all relevant to well-being but since you’re a Partner who says they care;
1. Honestly, just a no-asshole culture. A lot of this flows from the top.
2. There’s too much redundancy between M and PPMD levels. Remove the SM / Director layer and make Ms only when you think they are ready for those responsibilities. Don’t treat your Ms like C/SCs. Getting hands dirty is not a problem but having to pander to SM and Director and Partner and client is too much for Ms to handle.
3. Let the Ms / Project leads decide (in consultation with P of course) who / how many they want as staff on projects within the engagement contribution framework. Don’t understaff and burn out your practitioners
4. Don’t play the “because client says….” Game. Consult leads and staff. If a project is estimated for 12 weeks, it can’t be done in 6. Compromises can be reached to finish in 10 though.
5. In the spirit of continuous improvement, talk through solution approaches and help where you can. Don’t dump deliverables from xyz engagement and ask them to be used for abc engagement because you love your own work
6. Very thin line between managing and micro managing. If you are reviewing line by line and constantly coaching your leads what and how to say stuff to client, then you better find someone you trust and rally team around them instead of micro managing everyone all the time
7. There should be mandatory down time between projects for practitioners to recharge and contribute to knowledge activities. Commit to training and education. Meaningful stuff instead of canned LMS BS.
10% of project length capped at a maximum (two weeks for example)
Appreciate the feedback and welcome more, also hopefully it’s clear that this is a thoughtful question with a view toward long term change and there is not a sense of urgency.