Management
consulting firms offer some of the best workplace flexibility policies,
including benefits like paid leaves and sabbaticals. Most employees,
however, don’t take advantage of them. This seems like a missed
opportunity, especially since management consultants continue to experience extremely high levels of work-life conflict, leading to problems such as low satisfaction and high turnover.
Research suggests that “flexibility stigma”
explains this disjuncture between the policies offered by firms and
their limited uptake by employees. People fear that taking up these
benefits — e.g., paid parental leave, part-time or compressed workweeks,
extended leaves of absence, local or virtual projects to temporarily
decrease travel, and ad-hoc periods of increased flexibility — will lead
to them being seen as less committed to work.
We interviewed 50 management consultants
working at five prestigious firms based in the United States, asking
them broadly about their careers and personal lives to understand the
challenges they face. We learned that in addition to stigma, these
professionals also avoided flexibility policies in order to maintain a
sense of personal control: they preferred the freedom to manage their
work-life balance as they saw fit, rather than opting into a company
policy. (Our sample was half men and half women, half married or engaged
and half unmarried, and 60% had been in consulting for fewer than five
years.)
The
problem is that this perception of greater control didn’t seem to
alleviate their work-life conflicts. Our interviewees told us about many
family sacrifices, health problems, and suffering relationships due to
their busy work schedules. When asked why they didn’t try the
flexibility benefits available to them, they dismissed them as unusable.
For example, one consultant was unable to visit her father on his
deathbed because a client demanded her presence in another city. Rather
than accessing a flexible work option, she reluctantly conformed to the
request. She continues to carry intense regret about the outcome but
emphasizes that the decision was her own choice, which gives her a sense
of agency rather than victimization.
Why
would employees seek to preserve this feeling of control at the expense
of their own well-being? Four main reasons stood out.
First,
the consultants we talked to stressed that work-life balance (and
related policies) are simply incompatible with the job of consulting.
Regardless of gender or parental status, they firmly believed that
their jobs were inherently demanding and that their organizations could
not become more family-friendly. This belief is particularly striking
coming from consultants, who manage change in organizations for a
living.
They
often glorified the requirements of the work, including exceedingly
long hours, extended business trips, and weekend work, despite the
work-life imbalance generated by them. They viewed a proclivity toward
overwork as a natural characteristic of consultants — part of their
“constitution,” as one person told us — a belief that tends to paint
those who prioritize their family over their jobs as less suited for the
profession.
One
study participant Rita (all names are pseudonyms) told us, “I’ve been
in enough different jobs to know that there’s certain things that go
with the job, and you can’t really change it. You’re never gonna have
consulting and not have travel.” Even though she herself did not travel
when her kids were young, instead working mostly on local projects, she
rejected that solution for her peers.
Second, consultants prided themselves on managing work-life conflicts on an individual, as-needed basis. Despite
the breadth of programs offered, consultants in our sample emphasized
that managing work-life balance is fundamentally a personal issue. They
strongly believe that their “natural” suitability for consulting means
that they can — and should — find their own solutions. Most participants
rejected firm-offered flexibility policies, saying that a
“one-size-fits-all” approach does not help alleviate the unique
conflicts faced by different people.
Ron
told us, “When I hear of big programmatic solutions to work-life
balance, I approach them with some suspicion… Every person or couple’s
or parent’s recipe has different ingredients and different cooking times
and different-size ovens.”
Third, consultants framed work-life decisions as choices.
Most of the people we talked to used a language of choice (i.e.
“tradeoffs,” “compromises,” “choices”) to describe how they managed the
balance between their professional and personal lives. This language of
choice helped convince consultants that their current situations
accurately reflected their current preferences.
James,
for example, has cancelled many vacations with his spouse and children
in order to meet — and exceed — workplace demands. Reflecting, he says,
“I have the choice to work here … I sacrifice family time because I see
an opportunity to make a career advancement.’” He believed that taking
holiday meant not
advancing. But reframing these immutable demands as choices helped him
to reclaim a sense of agency in an otherwise disempowering situation.
Fourth, consultants emphasized their option to leave.
Because they see the structure of consulting work as unchangeable, they
try to manage their own work and life within it. They emphasize that,
if they’re ever unable to do so, they can always exit the industry.
James, for example, noted that, when he no longer wants to give up
family time for his job, he can leave consulting. Many others
highlighted quitting as an option. This is, of course, reflected in the
high turnover and “up-or-out” culture of the industry.
What organizations should do
So what should organizations do?
Flexibility programs remain important. Research
has shown that they can raise employee satisfaction, health, and
productivity, reduce turnover and have material bottom-line financial
impacts —if people use them. Here are ways to make it easier for
consultants and those in similar industries to do so.
Broaden success metrics.
Leaders must rethink what it takes to succeed at their organizations.
Instead of offering benefits that do not fundamentally change
expectations, they can build flexibility into their guiding logic.
When billable hours are a key metric in employee evaluations (as they
were in many of the firms we studied), programs that promise fewer hours
are problematic. Better metrics might include performance, quality, and
client and team satisfaction. Project assignments, evaluations, and
advancement decisions should be less contingent on work-life sacrifices,
including intensive travel.
While
most firms offer some form of 360 evaluations (i.e. subordinates
evaluating their superiors), they differ in weighing these for promotion
and compensation decisions. Those that actively value feedback from
lower-level employees may hold leaders more accountable for fostering
improved work-life balance.
Although
global staffing models, which routinely assign consultants to faraway
projects, are quite common, firms can also choose to instead emphasize
local and regional staffing, which could result in consultants
experiencing reduced work-life conflict.
Change the culture of “natural” overwork.
Organizations should also work to tone down the rhetoric of natural
suitability for consulting and the glorification of overwork. These
paint long hours and face time as essential, even moral, components of
elite professions. Instead, leaders can emphasize quality of hours over
quantity. Research
has shown it is possible to challenge and change these pervasive norms.
Local managers also have substantial discretion in creating team
cultures. They can encourage their own employees to take time off for
personal needs and to share responsibilities.
Frame flexibility as a shared organizational value.
The mantra of personal choice encourages individualized approaches to
work-life conflict, which, research suggests, are not particularly
successful in creating better outcomes. Instead, firms can communicate a
shared responsibility, emphasizing that they are committed to helping
employees find balance and well-being and do not expect their people to
bear that burden on their own.
Pervasive
work-life challenges are best addressed through organizational changes.
By following these steps, organizations can make progress in
alleviating these conflicts and providing solutions employees can use
more effectively.
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