Francine McKenna has done a bang up job analyzing the problems Deloitte faces as it moves into the busy season. As I read through the (long) post, I couldn’t help but feeling increasingly sorry for those left to crank out those 50-hour BILLABLE weeks – as confirmed by many commenters – and the veiled threat for those who ‘fail:’
…If you schedule less than 50 hours a week your Talent Professional will contact you to understand your situation… begin consolidating your engagement resource needs as soon as possible taking the 50 hour week requirement into consideration
And what about clients:
Do clients realize they may also see higher or compressed billing if they’re not on flat retainers? They will also see fewer people working longer hours in order to reach the utilization goals. Also more higher level staff will be looking for chargeable hours or perhaps doing staff work in order to attain those and therefore having less time to review work or, worse, end up reviewing their own work. Better scrutinize those invoices.
Francine sees this as a resourcing issue as Deloitte tries to shore up its position having lost so many financial services clients following the financial meltdown. I sense it is much worse than that. It cannot make any management sense to not only restrict pay increments and promotions while at the same time mandating a certain number of hours billed to clients. As FM says in comments:
What I object to is staff and seniors, in particular, being judged on their utilization and ability to forecast utilization when they have no control over their scheduling or the client schedule They only have control over doing well when assigned and doing the things that make them “assignable”.
And it isn’t just Deloitte the audit firm. The consulting operation has had a torrid time and some senior managers I met recently were decidedly sheepish about how well the firm is (or is not) doing.
It’s often said that a career in the profession is rewarding in many ways. But would you want to work in what amounts to a Taylorian environment and expected to respond like Pavlov’s Dog? Talk about a throw back to the early 20th century! And where’s client value in all this? Sheesh…As Pink Floyd sang: ‘Welcome to the Machine‘ on the Wish You Were Here album.
UPDATE: Alan Patrick says on Twitter: @dahowlett I was at one of the Big 6 in the last big recession (early 90′s), same behaviour then – its the perverse logic of their metrics
No learning there then…
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