A consulting firm sells the time and thinking of its people, and the business rises or falls on how well that time is used. Time is the product, so partners who sell without developing people end up rebuilding the team every couple of years.
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Share your requirementsA consulting firm sells expertise on projects of a few weeks to many months, usually at the client's office or by remote work. The team is stacked from analysts and associates through consultants and managers to partners or directors, and each project draws a fresh mix. When a project ends, people either move to another one or sit on the bench, and the partner's time goes to selling the next piece of work. Travel, client deadlines and long days are normal. Clients buy the firm, but they rely on the individual in the room, so losing a good consultant mid-project is costly. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Some people have no project while others work every weekend, and staffing decisions are made by whoever shouts loudest.
Analysts and associates do not know what it takes to become a consultant or manager, and promotion seems to follow mood.
Senior people are busy winning work, so coaching and honest feedback for juniors are rare.
Each team builds its own models and templates, and what was learnt on one project rarely helps the next.
Weeks away from home and constant client demands lead to quiet exits, often to client companies.
A single figure for billable time rewards the wrong behaviour and ignores contribution to proposals, hiring and learning.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Career and Succession Management; HR Strategy and Workforce Planning. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a consulting firms business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A shared view of upcoming work and people's availability, so assignments are matched to skills and development, not decided by chance.
What this coversHideA shared view of upcoming work and people's availability, so assignments are matched to skills and development, not decided by chance. The workforce planning work builds it.
What an associate, consultant and manager can be trusted with, and what evidence moves someone up.
What this coversHideWhat an associate, consultant and manager can be trusted with, and what evidence moves someone up. The competency and talent management work writes it down.
A short review at the end of each engagement from the manager and peers, collected into a half-yearly conversation.
What this coversHideA short review at the end of each engagement from the manager and peers, collected into a half-yearly conversation. Performance management provides the process.
A shared library for templates, models and lessons, with one person responsible for keeping it usable.
What this coversHideA shared library for templates, models and lessons, with one person responsible for keeping it usable.
Limits on consecutive weeks away, recovery time after heavy projects and an honest discussion before assignments are made.
What this coversHideLimits on consecutive weeks away, recovery time after heavy projects and an honest discussion before assignments are made.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Clear definitions for each level so progression rests on evidence.
Project-based feedback and a regular review that recognises more than billable hours.
A forward view of demand and availability so bench and overload are both managed.
A look at who leaves, after which projects, and where they go.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
6 min readRead article
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead article
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Share the pipeline openly, match availability to upcoming demand and use quiet periods for proposals, learning and knowledge building. Plan the move to the next project before the current one ends.
Track billable time, but add other contributions such as proposals, mentoring and reusable material. One figure alone pushes people in unhelpful directions.
Often for regular hours, a clear role and less travel. A visible career step and workload limits answer part of that.
Make it part of how partners are assessed, give them a simple format and set aside time. It will not happen on goodwill alone.
A simple one with four or five levels and plain definitions is enough. It makes promotion and pay discussions fairer.
We would go through how bench time and overload coexist, what associates believe it takes to be promoted, and who left after long-travel projects. A first piece of work could be a plain-language description of each level or a simple feedback step after every engagement. Once we have talked, we write down the scope and fees for you to agree.
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