A financial consulting firm sells analysis, planning and reporting help to company owners and finance heads. Clients trust named partners, analysts do the long hours, and the work comes in waves around closings and board dates.
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Share your requirementsA financial consulting firm advises companies on budgets, cost control, fundraising papers, valuation work, management reports and finance team set-up. Partners hold the client relationships and sign the advice, managers run engagements, and analysts build models, reconcile data and prepare presentations late into the night. Demand peaks near quarter ends, year ends and funding deadlines, then thins out. Clients share confidential numbers, so trust in each person matters from the first week. The professional services hub covers what advisory firms share, and management consulting sits close by.
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.
When a partner leaves, the client may follow, and the firm has no way of showing it holds the relationship in other hands.
A model needed for tomorrow's board meeting turns a normal week into a night shift, and the same people take it every time.
An analyst quietly does a manager's review work for lower pay, and neither side can point to a paper that says otherwise.
Those trained in modelling and reporting get offers from client finance teams, and the firm restarts the learning each year.
Partners are rewarded for new fees, analysts for hours, and nobody for the quality of reviews or the tidy handover of files.
Client files pass between phones, mail and shared drives, and the firm has no written habit for who holds what.
The firm has one or two senior names, and no plan for who can run a major client if either is unavailable.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Career and Succession Management; Retention and Attrition Management. 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.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
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 financial consulting business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Analyst, senior analyst, manager and director, each with the work done alone, the work reviewed and the signing authority.
What this coversHideAnalyst, senior analyst, manager and director, each with the work done alone, the work reviewed and the signing authority. See role design.
A scheme counting client retention, review quality, mentoring and fees together, written down before the year starts.
What this coversHideA scheme counting client retention, review quality, mentoring and fees together, written down before the year starts. Performance and incentive design explains the options.
A calendar of closing and board dates by client, with extra hands, time off after crunch weeks and a rule for who takes a late night.
What this coversHideA calendar of closing and board dates by client, with extra hands, time off after crunch weeks and a rule for who takes a late night.
Every major client has a second named contact in the firm, who joins calls and holds the file in outline.
What this coversHideEvery major client has a second named contact in the firm, who joins calls and holds the file in outline.
Where client numbers live, who may copy them and what happens to them at exit.
What this coversHideWhere client numbers live, who may copy them and what happens to them at exit. Put it in the joining pack.
A short list of who could run each major engagement if the lead is away, with a plan for developing them.
What this coversHideA short list of who could run each major engagement if the lead is away, with a plan for developing them.
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.
Incentive and appraisal design that rewards retention of clients, review quality and mentoring.
Clear duties and review authority for analysts, managers and directors, so work is not done in the wrong seat.
A short list of who can run each major engagement and how to prepare them.
A look at when and why juniors leave, and a plan to keep the ones worth training.
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
Measures that show how reactor, console, lab and gantry staff are really doing, the ones that mislead or bury near misses, and a monthly sheet an in-charge can run in twenty minutes.
7 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
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Name a second contact for every major client, bring them into calls early and share the file in outline. Reward partners for developing others, not only for holding the relationship.
Peaks are part of the work, but a rule helps. Plan extra hands, spread the burden across people, give time back after crunch weeks and check who has taken the most late nights.
Write who reviews what at each level, with a short checklist for models and reports. It protects the client, and teaches the analyst what good looks like.
Often for regular hours and a title. Offer a route to manager, a say in the work they take and a fair reward for staying, so the firm competes on more than pay.
Write it plainly in the joining pack and repeat it at appraisals. Cover where files may live, what may be shared and what must be returned or deleted on exit.
We would ask each partner which clients would follow them out, count late nights by analyst and compare role papers with what people do. Role papers with an incentive design are a natural start, and scope is agreed in writing for your sign-off.
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