I am working with a management consulting company that is interested in imrpoving the quality of life for its consultants and ultimately impacting turover and improving recruitment. They realize that their turover stems not from pay, training, or advancement opportunities, but basically from serious work/life balance issues and quality of work life. Typically, when a consultant is hired in his/her 20's they are accepting and even enthusiastic about constant travel, working at a client site with no office of your own, etc. It seems that once they reach their 30's and 40's the job hasn't changed but the workers priorities have and they are no longer comfortable with this lifestyle. This company does a good job of offering conceirge services that help but is now interested in doing more. I'm looking for stories of what other companies are doing out there to impact quality of life and promote a more positive work environment. All comments would be appreciated.

-- Sarah Gobble (sarahgobble@saratoga-institute.com), December 05, 2000

Answers

Sarah, I've included some more references at Fast Talk. The link below will take you there.

http://www.fastcompany.com/fasttalk/replypost.html?p=12006

M.

M Profile at: http://www.fastcompany.com/fasttalk/replypost.html? p=9738 "To be or not to be that is the question" A quote by Willy Shakes. Mantra of M. :///: "Life is about Private Relations not Public Relations"

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), December 07, 2000.

Sarah, Having been part of the environment you are speaking of, I can only offer a perspective. After spending 14 years on the road nearly every week, my priorities began to change last year and I wanted a saner lifestyle. The concierge services offered by my firm were the best; however, the only solution to a saner lifestyle for me was to travel less. My belief is that the solution lies in trying to get your consultants off of the road and in their own homes at night. The first firm that can figure out how to make this happen is going to be very successful, with low turnover and potential employees screaming to get in.

This year I made the jump to a saner lifestyle company. We utilize a regional staffing model. This puts our consultants closer to home; the travel distance is decreased, although the amount of travel is not always less.

We also have solution centers spread across the country where we can implement client solutions without having to be on site daily (a lot of firms use solution centers). While a lot of technical development can be handled in these centers, our client facing employees must still be on-site.

Best of luck to you - this is a wide-spread and important issue for management consulting firms. I would tell you to focus at the root of the issue (getting people off the road) rather than the short term solutions that won't fix the problem.

-- Suzee Sanderlin (suzee.sanderlin@granitar.com), December 08, 2000.