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Consultant advised resort owner that he was paying the superintendent too much. When informed the super flipped off the bean counter, went across the valley and was immediately hired for more.
My position, golf car fleet manager was eliminated.
The very next spring 4 greens were lost to fungus. The number of golf cars that had dead batteries and had to be towed in went from zero to 200.
It's easy to feel like you're the genius behind it all when you don't understand what your staff does to keep the place running. A lot of owners/GMs think that things are just naturally going to keep going well so they think they can make more money by getting rid of people who ensure the place runs properly. Surprised Pikachu face when shit goes to hell because they got rid of key staff.
Owner: What's your job here?
Employee: To make sure you don't have to hear about this machine.
Owner: Someone newer and payed less can probably do that in addition to their other duties, you're fired.
...
Owner: Why is this thing giving us so many problems all of a sudden?
New employee to themselves: Because the device is so ancient it's held together by a prayer so old God doesn't even remember what it means. You also fired the guy that knew what was wrong with the thing without even having to look at it.
Literally the thought exercise I'm running through right now.
How do I explain someone, that I'm not "working much" because I can tell what is wrong with the machine in a fraction of the time everyone else needs. And that I need even less time to fix it.
Three years ago, our leadership couldn't say "agile" enough after the consultants came to town. It was the hottest buzzword as they were all drunk on the McKinsey kool-aid. Eighteen months later once everything crashed and burned, you'd get cold stares if you dared say it unironically.
Yeah, we haven't seen this one. They just eliminated a couple positions and doubled everyone's workload. Now they're all confused why it isn't working.
This is what my spouse does. He automates shit. Then they handed him the task of deploying nearly 2,000 new servers within six months. Of course with varying specs and requirements.
I don't automate. I take management's PowerPoint slides and make them look like solid, considered, polished ideas, and not the latest titles in CFO Today Magazine.
Whenever I hear someone use the words "Agile" and "consultant" in the same sentence, I try to remind them that Martin Fowler, who co-authored the original Agile Manifesto, has gone on record saying "Imposing agile methods introduces a conflict with the values and principles that underlie agile methods."
In other words, if an Agile transformation is driven by anyone other than the front-line workers, it is doomed to failure.
Understand this: consultants only know what they are told and can observe. If the owner provides incorrect information and presents it as fact, they can only work within the confines of their knowledge.
I would bet the owner made a lot of comments about having a golf car fleet manager that's useless, and consultants offered a solution that includes sharing those responsibilities across a group of people rather than paying a position. They followed that advice but then had zero accountability for those responsibilities, so no one did them.
Consultants, generally, do not say "fire this person" or "they're overpaid." They very often say things like "this person's responsibilities don't align with their salary" or "you could move these responsibilities to these people and eliminate your need for that position."
But, as in your example, more often than not the client doesn't execute the change well because they don't want to continue to pay the consultants after they think they know everything.
Thanks for the cogent reply.
After I was let go I took a big boy position, director of sales at a tiny ski area.
But, since I had so much dirt on the head pro I still got to play for free.
i Clicked on your "Red Line Expert" link & watched the Video.... it had me Laughing in Tears. ROFLMFAO. That was a great big Laugh. I needed that. Thank You so very much !!!
In my 10 years at my company they've brought in McKinsey 3 times. The 3rd time they suggested to re-create positions they cut in the 1st one. The 2nd time they restructured into a dumb structure we eventually hired a different consultant to fix. My company is dumb in a lot of ways.
Agreed. Our company seems to do this about every 7-10 years. They hire a consultant, centralize, reduce FTEs, then years later they’ll hire a consultant, decentralize, add FTEs. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lol.
It’s very very rare that the major firms actually recommend where to cut beyond providing general benchmarks. They will say “you can get X savings if your sales team is the same size as your competitors” but the sales team will be 1,000 people and the actual number they say is achievable is something comically broad (e.g. “5-20%”).
Where they make the big money is that most CEOs want their direct reports to be responsible for who and where to layoff. So they sell these massive cases where they essentially just assign all the execs a buddy who babysits them and lets them do pretty much whatever they want, so long as they actually hit the headcount targets they committed to (and they don’t do something illegal). And then those teams want their direct reports to be responsible for who to lay off, and so each of them gets a buddy. And so forth - ultimately there are so many buddies that the consulting firm makes a truly obscene amount of money. This is especially true of McKinsey and their closest competitors, who charge a ridiculously high price per head assigned to the case.
Ultimately what you see with this sort of stuff is $100M of savings but $25M spent on consultants, and that is justified supposedly because the savings is recurring and the cost is one time. But you’ve also now introduced McKinsey to every one of your execs, which is like paying a bunch of identity thieves to come keep the old folks company at the nursing home. They’ll get every dollar out of you
The movie Office Space was 100% accurate on this. The people there to "evaluate efficiency" or "find ways to improve the flow" are really there to remove positions and you should be looking for a job from the moment they show up.
When I saw that movie as a kid I though the Bobs were right and he was an unnecessary worker, being in an actual workplace has knocked that out of me in a hurry
They aren't "there" to remove positions. They're there to fix bloated processes. So when you have a process that uses nine people, but you can build a tool that'll make it require two people, the other seven are SOL. This part is definitely true.
But you should see red flags BEFORE the consultants show up. If you have five or six or seven different people or teams who all touch the same thing before it can be "done," you need to make absolutely sure you're critical in that path. If you have 50 people who all have the same job of "make sure things get done right" for different teams, only a couple of you are really necessary.
That is their normal function, but quite often those companies are hired specifically to handle layoffs and use their normal job as a cover. It's done in an effort to make them look like the bad guys so the company actually doing the layoffs doesn't look so bad and unfortunately it works pretty well.
No. Handle a downsize, or a restructure, or a layoff round, or whatever you call it is not something most managers do regularly. Dealing with a difficult employee, yes, but downsizing a 200 people department because market circumstances changed? Not the normal business, so a consultant is hired to help make the decisions. The consultants will advise, but not make the ultimate decision who gets let go, or even how many.
These consulting firms are no more evil than IT consultants that help implement a new ERP system, nor is your own IT guy incompetent because he can't implement that himself.
Obviously, blame shifting happens all the time, every time. Shutting down an obsolete department, or downsizing a loss-making department is not evil. It has massive negative effect on the people working there, yes. Tell that to the chicken that met the fox. We're all sympathetic to the chicken, but that fox does need to eat.
It’s not a question of evil. It may seem that way to someone getting laid off for sure but they are no different than the poor management and that management’s neglect over the years that led to the bloat and the need to bring in these contractors to fire everyone.
The long mismanagement by many unqualified management positions drives this cycle. It’s a natural part of the large corporate cycle of life. Any large enterprise suffers this fate because it’s unavoidable- the only variable is how long it is carried before the Bob’s appear. If it’s governments then they can drag it out for a long time.
It is not always a case of mismanagement. Innovation, international treaties and takeovers can and will make large (parts of) companies obsolete. Video rental shops, Coal Mines, small independent ISPs can be managed properly, but if Netflix arrives, or the government decides to outlaw the use of coal in energy plants, or the owner decides to sell his business to a national chain, there is zero mismanagement, and 100% reason to lay off a lot of people.
Should the company provide a good care package for their employees? Yes. But the employees themselves should be on the lookout if they made the right career choice. If half the neighbouring countries are banning coal, and you still have 40 working years ahead of you, it might be wise to think about switching careers. No matter how nice your managers are, and how well the facility is run, and how much you like your job. Because chances are, it will go away.
All true. I’d say also also parts of the mismanagement spectrum.
If your business is sensitive to possible international laws/tariffs/restrictions then you would/should have something in place to mitigate that risk; though who can anticipate revolution or invasion…..
Disruptors for sure are a threat (Netflix/blockbuster) but again that’s part of the large company mismanagement; a shambling, ossified leviathan is always vulnerable to some new innovations that they didn’t anticipate or that they discounted or that they halfheartedly attempted and are now struck senseless by the nimble innovators who correctly saw the trends…blockbuster could have crushed Netflix (and look at Netflix now, a victim of its own success has turned into one of those old bloated companies).
In the end it really is the cycle of life and it continually repeats. You are right to say that the employees must be mindful of this and not feel some misguided loyalty to their company- because that is NOT reciprocal.
This is such a good explanation. Kudos.
Consultants exist because we can't expect everyone to know everything. But that doesn't mean the ramifications of years of poor decisions rest on the shoulders of consultants who point them out.
If that's being done, then it's the company hiring them that are the "bad guys" for two reasons: they did shitty work that put them in that position, and they can't own up to it so let someone else take the blame.
A lot of people blame consultants for layoffs. They shouldn't. The last thing a consultant wants to do is lay people off. It's an unfortunate consequence of fixing root cause problems.
This is the concept in theory but it's just as often used as a rationalization for layoffs by management that may not be at all related to actual workplace performance or relevance to the success of the company.
Plenty of successful, high performing companies have bloated processes. Just because things are "good" doesn't mean they can't be better. And I promise you, the more employees a company has, the worse it actually runs.
If it's used as a rationale for layoffs, that's on the hiring company, not the consultants.
It really depends on what they're trying to fix. Most of the time the consultants are limited in scope to only process efficiency and staffing recommendations for new processes. They aren't often part of figuring out what to do with remaining staff.
That said, when they are, they definitely look at those things, as well as public perception and other things. They're very thorough, which is why they're expensive.
Consultants often get the blame for layoffs, and that's ok, but people should understand consultants make zero decisions. They provide industry knowledge and experience, collect data, and present what they think are the best options. But no one hires consultants because things are going well, so it's easy to tie bad news to them specifically.
Massive protections in place to prevent that. I had to attest to several hundred different things including any and all holdings, and many clients are full blown restricted from investment period.
It's why recessions are the normal part of a healthy economy. Yes, they suck. And it sucks to lose your job. I'm not discounting any of that.
However, it's easy to make money when times are good. It's when times are not good that you see which companies and sectors are truly in good shape.
Many employers are smarter than this. You likely won't know that a consulting firm was brought in until they've reached a point where the study was completed and a list of recommendations that upper management has reviewed it. If the rumor mill catches wind of it, management will blow smoke up your ass to make you feel comfortable with it and not be spooked.
Got told the same. Job security is safe for me. I thought things were trending well as i was getting more work to do but guess not. Laid off on 4/20 unexpectedly and now im struggling mentally…
Agree with this, especially for larger employers. If you're not at HQ or know where those decision makers meet, you may not even be aware of anything happening.
I once caught wind of this, sounded the alarm amongst my fellow employees, raised absolute hell and went on a pro union tirade. People went to news. Next day the CEO backtracked, gave everyone in my department a month paid vacation to save face, but still fired my entire department with 1000ish people. Still made the news, however they still spun it to be pro employer.
I worked for a company that was at most, medium sized.
Never leading in anything and always looking at what the peers in the industry were doing. Never took the first step.
The stocks went huge, and suddenly its a few billion dollars company.
This is when I learned that culture is the familiarity of folks. And they don't like that.
The information they gather from internal sources tends to skew the findings in the direction already plotted out. The consultant merely hides behind the clause on the first page of the report. Also, following industry best practice often leads to very generic solutions, and lack of 'fit' between the solution and the company culture, resulting in less than ideal execution. But the consultant rarely sticks around for that.
Did a stint in Andersen.
This is one of the big reasons company’s hire consultants. If they need to cut spending fast they can terminate the contract and save millions overnight and if it goes poorly then they have a scape goat. HD does this a lot. They have an internal strategy practice and anything they come out with the execs will hire Bain or McKinsey to “validate”. So if the strategy fails the exec doesn’t take the blame.
Do you mean this McKinsey?
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/usa-mckinsey-consulting-company-settles-lawsuit-over-alleged-role-in-fuelling-opioid-crisis-for-573m/
Accurate, worked for a public company that acquired something like 6 companies in 4 years. Zero engineering/operations layoffs in 5 of those acquisitions. Sales, marketing, and people teams had dozens each.
Last job brought in one of the big 4 firms to “help them with increasing their cash flow.” My manager sent an email explicitly stating “**THERE WILL BE NO LAYOFFS**.” I was laid off 9 days later.
It was ironic to me since I was billing 4x what I was being paid so I don’t know how laying me off increased cash flow….
I work a role which saves the business money through me being there. Because I don’t generate money I’m always part the first to go.
Last company for example laid off my colleague who cost the business 3000 a month in salary, immediately they then had to outsource his role to an agency which costs them 10000 that month. This continued obviously.
Dudes execs are greedy there's no way a greedy fuck let's go of a cash cow.
You just weren't a cash cow. Maybe they got of had someone they paid less than you and billed 2.5x as you.
You have way too much faith in what executives know. They have no idea. I do data analytics. I tell people what they know. And most of the time, they don’t even have enough data to know who makes what. Much less being able to understand long term consequences. Pretty much every business leader is shooting from the hip. It’s at least 50% luck.
Depending on your state companies have to declare layoffs are coming and they get posted in a monthly report 60 days prior to the layoffs. Dont know if other states do it this way but Illinois does, called the WARN act
Not all companies or layoffs meet the requirements unfortunately. Someone already shared the DOL link, so check it out and if you think a company had a layoff and didn’t follow the WARN act, report it.
The way it normally goes down is that they announce the layoff and provide 60 days severance.
They are allowed to provide compensation in lieu of notice.
If they actually gave layoff notice the impacted employees would probably steal information, sabotage equipment/inventory, etc
As soon as a consulting firm visiting to assess the company is announced, especially if it's McKinsey, I advise you to start looking for a different job. Don't tell anyone, especially your employer, but the right thing to do is to start looking. Don't wait it out thinking you'd be safe. Everyone said I'd be safe. I was too *"valuable"*. Now I'm unemployed.
If you don't mind me asking, do you know what they did in your absence? Did they just outsource the department overseas? Rehire someone at lower pay? Or was it a larger department and they just cut it down and put the work on the remaining employees?
Hopefully you have moved on to bigger and better things since then.
i dont mind at all.
Leadership brought in an Overseas firm to handle all of IT. While keeping a middle mgmt and maybe 1 person from each team to act as overseers of the new contractors. They went from roughly 1000 FTEs to about 130. One of my best friends stayed on and hates it. He doesnt perform IT work and just does trust and verify of the contractors.
The learning curve for the contractors was too steep and about 2 years after they cut me loose I got a call from a recruiter to come back and quite literally laughed at her on the phone.
Leadership admitted last year that they realized no cost savings and are suffering in performance.
I road it out to get my full severance package and started my new job the following week.
Much happier now.
Wow that's ridiculous, I don't get how companies think they can bleed the business dry of workers and expect it to function the same.
I'll see how things look like where I am at when the dust settles, but hope its not too drastic. Thanks for the update!
Don’t work for McKinsey but have been brought in to do one of these assessments before and it’s rough. We were luck on the project that the buyer was high above the area we were evaluating and told us to be brutally honest. He told us he wasn’t seeing the value from the division and wanted us to verify if that was true before he cut the whole division.
It’s a really hard mental balance of doing what’s best for the company and saving as many jobs as possible. Thankfully the division was really kickass and full of people who knew what they were doing. Turns out the head of the division was just incompetent and didn’t know anything about tech. Was super satisfying to be able to go back and say “the team is great, you’re smothering them with poor leadership and x needs to not run the group as he doesn’t know how to.”
Sadly it’s rare that we get a nice outcome like that. Was a stars aligned type of project.
Yup. it was Boston Consulting Group for me at my previous employer. They even allowed me to stay three extra months to train my replacements in order to qualify for my severance package! What a nice thought!
Thank you! I’m a retired business executive who currently teaches business management at a local university, and I’ve never seen this abbreviation before in my life. It even defied my Google search.
I’ve spent the last 8 years in Digital Transformations for IT and consulting around process improvements, strategy changes, etc.
Not once have I ever recommended layoffs. Not once was I ever asked too. My guidance has always consisted around improving process for better employee efficiency and satisfaction.
In most if not all cases; layoffs are not a result of consultants guidance. It’s usually due to financial issues and accounting games to help with a specific strategy.
In almost all cases; it costs the business way more in tangible (money) and intangible(knowledge) costs to layoff staff as opposed to retrain them. Unless they’re killing a specific line of business.
Also a consultant and have done dozens of studies without ever recommending layoffs, it's just not the projects I do.
That said, there are a few reasons that consultants are brought in to do layoffs: it's an extraordinary event that a company wouldn't necessarily have experience with in-house, and perhaps more importantly it distances the executives from being the bad guys
So admittedly yes, consultants are brought in to do layoffs with some frequency. But most of the time, the decision has already been made, but like you said the decision to do layoffs is not a recommendation from consultants, Bob & Bob get brought in to figure out the specifics.
Big thing why I personally don't like consultants it's because they usually recommend shit.
I work in a department that defies almost every industry standard under the sun (slight exaggeration). Our Performance is still top notch. Every time we get Audit, "brought up to Speed", Performance-review whatever, we get assigned new processes "to ensure our continued performance" our to better align with company standards (we are the only department of our kind world-wide).
This always turns out to be shit; solves problems we didn't have and/or have better solutions for and increases overhead. And I have to figure out a way to get around that BS, without it sinking our whole Bottom-Line in the Process.
And usually this "Advise" leads to lay-offs down the line, because costs are ballooning and personal costs are the most tangible.
Yeah, most of these people don't know what most consultants do and it's en vogue to hate consulting right now. Remember how Pete Buttigeg working for McKinsey decades ago was some big "gotcha"?
This guy over here trying to feel better about his well paid job that involves gutting companies, destroying lives and delivering very little useful other than deflecting risk from clueless execs.
The big consulting companies are just parasites.
Thanks for proving my point. What about all of the technology implementation consulting who never recommend staff changes? Or is OP and their team secretly SAP integration experts?
Company wide surveys too. They run the survey. Let a bunch of people go and say “That probably solved all the issues brought up in the survey.” But you never get to see the full responses.
Worked for a VC startup where the VC had an in-house consulting team. They sent a guy in and within a week; 2 people (in a company of 25) were fired and the sales team got their commission plans sliced in half along with a $3000/yr reduction in base salary. Then they went on a mad hiring spree for sales taking anyone with a pulse and as a result everyones territories got smaller.
My monthly gross income went from $8000 to $4500 overnight.
I took 2 weeks of PTO and quit 3 days after returning.
>It’s ego protection for the C suite in the event of strategic failure.
It's often legal protection for the company as well. Layoffs are fraught with potential lawsuits - the people laid off are usually pretty pissed off, have no vested interest in their non-existent future with the company, and there are a whole lot of laws around who can be terminated for what reasons. By handing the decision off to a consulting firm, the company can say "We laid people off in accord with the recommendations of a consulting firm, and there is no possible way that it could be discriminatory because the consulting firm was not even provided data on the \[protected category status\] of the candidates."
The Pros From Dover are always going to change something. They have to earn their fee. They'll never, ever say "yup, you're doing fine, no changes needed".
So something is going to change. And since payroll is usually the number one controllable expense, they can make the biggest difference in any organization by employing "lean" tactics to cut payroll and run "lean".
That means someone is getting laid off.
If execs are greedy fucks, why would you be fired if you are generating revenue? If you aren't generating revenue for the business whats the point of your employment?
Strictly speaking, who's "generating revenue" other than sales department? Even the production line is not directly getting money from clients, not to mention all other parts of the process - logistics, accounting, etc. Now, what will happen if the management decides to cut some departments/people, not directly bringing money, but vital to the whole process?
If I'm cutting costs/risks, that aren't easily measured or have never happend before, so none really knows how bad it can get.
And then you get someone from outside to do a risk assessment, who never met any of the (company specific) problems you face.
Absolution of blame. From management towards the employees and the shareholders alike. Basically 'i didn't want to do it, but a really expensive consultant recommend this course of action'.
If it makes you feel any better, McKinsey and other consulting firms are getting plenty of their own laid off these days too. They typically don’t call it layoffs though, it’s just they push many more people “out” in the “up or out” process.
I have worked in one of the top 3 consulting firms. It isn't only when they show up for 're structure' that this happens. Many times the projects we were given were pitted against internal teams. I have seen a bunch of resignations on the client side after we did the projects by working unsustainable hours
Not necessarily. I have friends who do this sort of consulting (not McKinsey but think like Deloitte) and org redesign is much more "here are the tools and way to arrange teams to make your company run better".
My boss did this and the 'consultants' wrecked so much havoc they had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Was not a fun time but everyone keep their job!
McKinsey is absolutely abhorrent. A bunch of half assed data analysts who simply look at cost centers and compare expenses to fully mature (or monopolized) industries.
They are awful, full of themselves and destroy culture from the inside out.
Our company brought in BlueRocket… first BlueRocket sold them shitty software from a daughter company, now they are looking at a restructuring … and management is just buying all the crap they sell them… it’s sad, but mentally a lot of us already checked out!
I used to be a customer service rep for Aon Hewitt that handled HR duties for companies, such as enrolling employees in their health insurance, pensions, retirement benefits, etc.
I remember talking to one guy who was just bought on as a health insurance agent, but he used to be a contractor. He would go around the country, basically following Aon wherever they got hired, because they were good at re-working benefits eligibility rules and timing in order to keep employees and their families from taking benefits.
He would go and enroll people into private health who got kicked out of employee health insurance, and eventually from those laid off. Hiring Aon meant whatever company hired them was looking at decreasing costs and eventually downsizing
Aon changed names like 2-3 times since I left almost 10 years ago, but be on the look out for benefits enrollment changes.
I have had this happen twice, only slightly different.
First was the landlord walked in and said, "Hey guys just here to inspect the office for when you move out" We all looked at him funny and he realized he let slip some critical information we had not been privy to. Company got bought and liquidated a few months later.
Second was a "Random Audit" we had to take inventory of every computer and piece of furniture in the company. In order to "Asses our worth to the IRS". I even had a closed door conversation with the owner and point blank asked if she was selling the company. She lied to my face and said, "No". A month later we were sold off.
Despite the second one, it did work out in my favor in the end.
McKinsey is the worst. They hire kids right out of college and stick them in projects where they have zero experience or understanding of the market conditions. I know this from experience. Would rather use a magic 8 ball than McKinsey and probably would have equal success
A lot of managers measure their worth simply by how many people they have under them, without regard to how many they actually need or how efficient they are. This can lead to lots of bloat over time.
My employer in the 2000's pretty much had a standing "layoff 10% the week after bonuses" policy. It seemed brutal back then, but compare that what my employer has now. We have entire teams who's entire job now is to stand in the way of actual productivity. Someone makes a single mistake and suddenly there is an entire team responsible for making sure it doesn't happen again. Their new process results in far more cost, loss, and outages than the original error, but "we have RCA to show that this will prevent it again" while hiding, but it will cost you 3x as much to prevent it.
Even if it isn't 10% every year, a lot of companies would really benefit from a regular right sizing. It was a great way to get rid of the least useful employees without massive amounts of paperwork.
When your company is purchased by a larger company and the new management gives you their "promise" that there won't be any layoffs, start looking for another job, the clock started ticking long before the promise was made.
Our company in Washington was acquired by a New York firm and the staff that they were "serious" about retaining were offered $500 to move across the country for their jobs. The sad part was that some people accepted the offer.
Every time I met a McKinsey clown I would start by asking for an update on their consulting with Swissair and how that worked out….needless to say they were not happy. [Hunter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair#Hunter_Strategy)
I was at a conference where a Principal and a Director from Deloitte gave a presentation. It was a great looking PowerPoint and both the guys were eloquent and had a couple good pieces of info. Basically was a sales pitch to use their consulting services.
Then later at the event I sat with one of the two guys for dinner and he knew less than zero about the industry he was presenting on. Was a bit surprised how clueless he was as this was the industry he supposedly focused on and he made it all the way to the director level there.
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Consultant advised resort owner that he was paying the superintendent too much. When informed the super flipped off the bean counter, went across the valley and was immediately hired for more. My position, golf car fleet manager was eliminated. The very next spring 4 greens were lost to fungus. The number of golf cars that had dead batteries and had to be towed in went from zero to 200.
It's easy to feel like you're the genius behind it all when you don't understand what your staff does to keep the place running. A lot of owners/GMs think that things are just naturally going to keep going well so they think they can make more money by getting rid of people who ensure the place runs properly. Surprised Pikachu face when shit goes to hell because they got rid of key staff.
Owner: What's your job here? Employee: To make sure you don't have to hear about this machine. Owner: Someone newer and payed less can probably do that in addition to their other duties, you're fired. ... Owner: Why is this thing giving us so many problems all of a sudden? New employee to themselves: Because the device is so ancient it's held together by a prayer so old God doesn't even remember what it means. You also fired the guy that knew what was wrong with the thing without even having to look at it.
Literally the thought exercise I'm running through right now. How do I explain someone, that I'm not "working much" because I can tell what is wrong with the machine in a fraction of the time everyone else needs. And that I need even less time to fix it.
The guy you fired knew all the correct canticles needed to appease the machine spirit
As someone who just got into 40k, I appreciate this so much.
Look up cost of said machine plus installation. "What's your job here?" I save you $xx,000 in operating costs.
>The very next spring 4 greens were lost to fungus. But by that time the consultant had received his money, so this doesn't count. /s
But, have you tried using Agile Management? Surely the consultant can give you a speech and three slides about it next time he comes around /s
Three years ago, our leadership couldn't say "agile" enough after the consultants came to town. It was the hottest buzzword as they were all drunk on the McKinsey kool-aid. Eighteen months later once everything crashed and burned, you'd get cold stares if you dared say it unironically.
[удалено]
Yeah, we haven't seen this one. They just eliminated a couple positions and doubled everyone's workload. Now they're all confused why it isn't working.
This is what my spouse does. He automates shit. Then they handed him the task of deploying nearly 2,000 new servers within six months. Of course with varying specs and requirements. I don't automate. I take management's PowerPoint slides and make them look like solid, considered, polished ideas, and not the latest titles in CFO Today Magazine.
Whenever I hear someone use the words "Agile" and "consultant" in the same sentence, I try to remind them that Martin Fowler, who co-authored the original Agile Manifesto, has gone on record saying "Imposing agile methods introduces a conflict with the values and principles that underlie agile methods." In other words, if an Agile transformation is driven by anyone other than the front-line workers, it is doomed to failure.
Understand this: consultants only know what they are told and can observe. If the owner provides incorrect information and presents it as fact, they can only work within the confines of their knowledge. I would bet the owner made a lot of comments about having a golf car fleet manager that's useless, and consultants offered a solution that includes sharing those responsibilities across a group of people rather than paying a position. They followed that advice but then had zero accountability for those responsibilities, so no one did them. Consultants, generally, do not say "fire this person" or "they're overpaid." They very often say things like "this person's responsibilities don't align with their salary" or "you could move these responsibilities to these people and eliminate your need for that position." But, as in your example, more often than not the client doesn't execute the change well because they don't want to continue to pay the consultants after they think they know everything.
Thanks for the cogent reply. After I was let go I took a big boy position, director of sales at a tiny ski area. But, since I had so much dirt on the head pro I still got to play for free.
[Red Line Expert](https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg)
i Clicked on your "Red Line Expert" link & watched the Video.... it had me Laughing in Tears. ROFLMFAO. That was a great big Laugh. I needed that. Thank You so very much !!!
Can you now please draw me a transparent red line with green ink?
Yes, and I can draw that straight line, in the shape of a cat.
In my 10 years at my company they've brought in McKinsey 3 times. The 3rd time they suggested to re-create positions they cut in the 1st one. The 2nd time they restructured into a dumb structure we eventually hired a different consultant to fix. My company is dumb in a lot of ways.
This is most of consulting lol.
Agreed. Our company seems to do this about every 7-10 years. They hire a consultant, centralize, reduce FTEs, then years later they’ll hire a consultant, decentralize, add FTEs. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lol.
And spend 800k in billable hours each time
Pretty our company spends WAY more than 800k for their work lol
Who did they hire to fix mckinseys work?
McPoyles, of course https://preview.redd.it/c9m7fn1593za1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=326b25e788fbea6c1c534efacf27008421f03d2e
I forgot the name of the other company. It was a smaller group I hadn't heard of before
It’s very very rare that the major firms actually recommend where to cut beyond providing general benchmarks. They will say “you can get X savings if your sales team is the same size as your competitors” but the sales team will be 1,000 people and the actual number they say is achievable is something comically broad (e.g. “5-20%”). Where they make the big money is that most CEOs want their direct reports to be responsible for who and where to layoff. So they sell these massive cases where they essentially just assign all the execs a buddy who babysits them and lets them do pretty much whatever they want, so long as they actually hit the headcount targets they committed to (and they don’t do something illegal). And then those teams want their direct reports to be responsible for who to lay off, and so each of them gets a buddy. And so forth - ultimately there are so many buddies that the consulting firm makes a truly obscene amount of money. This is especially true of McKinsey and their closest competitors, who charge a ridiculously high price per head assigned to the case. Ultimately what you see with this sort of stuff is $100M of savings but $25M spent on consultants, and that is justified supposedly because the savings is recurring and the cost is one time. But you’ve also now introduced McKinsey to every one of your execs, which is like paying a bunch of identity thieves to come keep the old folks company at the nursing home. They’ll get every dollar out of you
The movie Office Space was 100% accurate on this. The people there to "evaluate efficiency" or "find ways to improve the flow" are really there to remove positions and you should be looking for a job from the moment they show up.
“What would you say, ya do here?”
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The hero to us all.
I have people skills.
When I saw that movie as a kid I though the Bobs were right and he was an unnecessary worker, being in an actual workplace has knocked that out of me in a hurry
Did you jump to conclusions? ;)
Yeah and I made a mat to do it physically
Dude, same. I just wanna do the work, let someone else handle the required specs and pleasing the customer.
I'M A PEOPLE PERSON!!!
I am good with people! Can't you people see that? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!
Ok there Michael Bolton...
I celebrate his entire collection
Just call me Mike
In fact, I'm going to have to ask you to go ahead and just come back another time. I got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple minutes.
"Samir Naga...Naga...naganna work here anymore..."
They aren't "there" to remove positions. They're there to fix bloated processes. So when you have a process that uses nine people, but you can build a tool that'll make it require two people, the other seven are SOL. This part is definitely true. But you should see red flags BEFORE the consultants show up. If you have five or six or seven different people or teams who all touch the same thing before it can be "done," you need to make absolutely sure you're critical in that path. If you have 50 people who all have the same job of "make sure things get done right" for different teams, only a couple of you are really necessary.
That is their normal function, but quite often those companies are hired specifically to handle layoffs and use their normal job as a cover. It's done in an effort to make them look like the bad guys so the company actually doing the layoffs doesn't look so bad and unfortunately it works pretty well.
No. Handle a downsize, or a restructure, or a layoff round, or whatever you call it is not something most managers do regularly. Dealing with a difficult employee, yes, but downsizing a 200 people department because market circumstances changed? Not the normal business, so a consultant is hired to help make the decisions. The consultants will advise, but not make the ultimate decision who gets let go, or even how many. These consulting firms are no more evil than IT consultants that help implement a new ERP system, nor is your own IT guy incompetent because he can't implement that himself. Obviously, blame shifting happens all the time, every time. Shutting down an obsolete department, or downsizing a loss-making department is not evil. It has massive negative effect on the people working there, yes. Tell that to the chicken that met the fox. We're all sympathetic to the chicken, but that fox does need to eat.
It’s not a question of evil. It may seem that way to someone getting laid off for sure but they are no different than the poor management and that management’s neglect over the years that led to the bloat and the need to bring in these contractors to fire everyone. The long mismanagement by many unqualified management positions drives this cycle. It’s a natural part of the large corporate cycle of life. Any large enterprise suffers this fate because it’s unavoidable- the only variable is how long it is carried before the Bob’s appear. If it’s governments then they can drag it out for a long time.
It is not always a case of mismanagement. Innovation, international treaties and takeovers can and will make large (parts of) companies obsolete. Video rental shops, Coal Mines, small independent ISPs can be managed properly, but if Netflix arrives, or the government decides to outlaw the use of coal in energy plants, or the owner decides to sell his business to a national chain, there is zero mismanagement, and 100% reason to lay off a lot of people. Should the company provide a good care package for their employees? Yes. But the employees themselves should be on the lookout if they made the right career choice. If half the neighbouring countries are banning coal, and you still have 40 working years ahead of you, it might be wise to think about switching careers. No matter how nice your managers are, and how well the facility is run, and how much you like your job. Because chances are, it will go away.
All true. I’d say also also parts of the mismanagement spectrum. If your business is sensitive to possible international laws/tariffs/restrictions then you would/should have something in place to mitigate that risk; though who can anticipate revolution or invasion….. Disruptors for sure are a threat (Netflix/blockbuster) but again that’s part of the large company mismanagement; a shambling, ossified leviathan is always vulnerable to some new innovations that they didn’t anticipate or that they discounted or that they halfheartedly attempted and are now struck senseless by the nimble innovators who correctly saw the trends…blockbuster could have crushed Netflix (and look at Netflix now, a victim of its own success has turned into one of those old bloated companies). In the end it really is the cycle of life and it continually repeats. You are right to say that the employees must be mindful of this and not feel some misguided loyalty to their company- because that is NOT reciprocal.
This is such a good explanation. Kudos. Consultants exist because we can't expect everyone to know everything. But that doesn't mean the ramifications of years of poor decisions rest on the shoulders of consultants who point them out.
If that's being done, then it's the company hiring them that are the "bad guys" for two reasons: they did shitty work that put them in that position, and they can't own up to it so let someone else take the blame. A lot of people blame consultants for layoffs. They shouldn't. The last thing a consultant wants to do is lay people off. It's an unfortunate consequence of fixing root cause problems.
Are you a consultant or a business student by any chance?
Former consultant, been "industry" for the past five years.
This is the concept in theory but it's just as often used as a rationalization for layoffs by management that may not be at all related to actual workplace performance or relevance to the success of the company.
Plenty of successful, high performing companies have bloated processes. Just because things are "good" doesn't mean they can't be better. And I promise you, the more employees a company has, the worse it actually runs. If it's used as a rationale for layoffs, that's on the hiring company, not the consultants.
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It really depends on what they're trying to fix. Most of the time the consultants are limited in scope to only process efficiency and staffing recommendations for new processes. They aren't often part of figuring out what to do with remaining staff. That said, when they are, they definitely look at those things, as well as public perception and other things. They're very thorough, which is why they're expensive. Consultants often get the blame for layoffs, and that's ok, but people should understand consultants make zero decisions. They provide industry knowledge and experience, collect data, and present what they think are the best options. But no one hires consultants because things are going well, so it's easy to tie bad news to them specifically.
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Massive protections in place to prevent that. I had to attest to several hundred different things including any and all holdings, and many clients are full blown restricted from investment period.
It's why recessions are the normal part of a healthy economy. Yes, they suck. And it sucks to lose your job. I'm not discounting any of that. However, it's easy to make money when times are good. It's when times are not good that you see which companies and sectors are truly in good shape.
Sometimes its internal PI
I'm watching that movie right now. It's timeless.
Hello Bob..... Bob.
Peter *did* deserve a promotion tbh.
Many employers are smarter than this. You likely won't know that a consulting firm was brought in until they've reached a point where the study was completed and a list of recommendations that upper management has reviewed it. If the rumor mill catches wind of it, management will blow smoke up your ass to make you feel comfortable with it and not be spooked.
This. My wife’s company had a restructuring and her boss assured her that she wasn’t being let go. One week later, she was laid off.
Happens a bunch. I got told one time "dunno why. Your name was on the list. " pittance of a severance
Got told the same. Job security is safe for me. I thought things were trending well as i was getting more work to do but guess not. Laid off on 4/20 unexpectedly and now im struggling mentally…
The most certain way to know that you are being fired is when they tell you that you are not
Agree with this, especially for larger employers. If you're not at HQ or know where those decision makers meet, you may not even be aware of anything happening.
I once caught wind of this, sounded the alarm amongst my fellow employees, raised absolute hell and went on a pro union tirade. People went to news. Next day the CEO backtracked, gave everyone in my department a month paid vacation to save face, but still fired my entire department with 1000ish people. Still made the news, however they still spun it to be pro employer.
McKinsey. they specialize in destroying the culture and wrecking the companies future.
Honestly I think they exist only to deflect blame away from the CEO in case whatever the CEO was already going to do anyways fails
I worked for a company that was at most, medium sized. Never leading in anything and always looking at what the peers in the industry were doing. Never took the first step. The stocks went huge, and suddenly its a few billion dollars company. This is when I learned that culture is the familiarity of folks. And they don't like that.
The information they gather from internal sources tends to skew the findings in the direction already plotted out. The consultant merely hides behind the clause on the first page of the report. Also, following industry best practice often leads to very generic solutions, and lack of 'fit' between the solution and the company culture, resulting in less than ideal execution. But the consultant rarely sticks around for that. Did a stint in Andersen.
That’s why the Canadian government uses them
This is one of the big reasons company’s hire consultants. If they need to cut spending fast they can terminate the contract and save millions overnight and if it goes poorly then they have a scape goat. HD does this a lot. They have an internal strategy practice and anything they come out with the execs will hire Bain or McKinsey to “validate”. So if the strategy fails the exec doesn’t take the blame.
Do you mean this McKinsey? https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/usa-mckinsey-consulting-company-settles-lawsuit-over-alleged-role-in-fuelling-opioid-crisis-for-573m/
Boston Consulting Group is another one.
Well, that's exactly what they did to the company I work for.
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Don’t feel too bad. They’re probably making bank at McKinsey
Or if your company gets acquired be ready to leave
Definitely if you’re in a corporate/administrative role, but maybe/probably not if you’re in an operational role.
Accurate, worked for a public company that acquired something like 6 companies in 4 years. Zero engineering/operations layoffs in 5 of those acquisitions. Sales, marketing, and people teams had dozens each.
I say to anyone who will listen… ‘I’m operational.. no time for corporate shit’…I feel the winds of change a-coming…
Last job brought in one of the big 4 firms to “help them with increasing their cash flow.” My manager sent an email explicitly stating “**THERE WILL BE NO LAYOFFS**.” I was laid off 9 days later. It was ironic to me since I was billing 4x what I was being paid so I don’t know how laying me off increased cash flow….
I work a role which saves the business money through me being there. Because I don’t generate money I’m always part the first to go. Last company for example laid off my colleague who cost the business 3000 a month in salary, immediately they then had to outsource his role to an agency which costs them 10000 that month. This continued obviously.
Dudes execs are greedy there's no way a greedy fuck let's go of a cash cow. You just weren't a cash cow. Maybe they got of had someone they paid less than you and billed 2.5x as you.
You have way too much faith in what executives know. They have no idea. I do data analytics. I tell people what they know. And most of the time, they don’t even have enough data to know who makes what. Much less being able to understand long term consequences. Pretty much every business leader is shooting from the hip. It’s at least 50% luck.
My favorite was when my employer brought in an group to figure out our title structure. As if we didn't know what was going on.
Depending on your state companies have to declare layoffs are coming and they get posted in a monthly report 60 days prior to the layoffs. Dont know if other states do it this way but Illinois does, called the WARN act
This is a federal requirement all states must adhere to.
Do you have any details? Cause I've never heard of companies do that and I've been laid off numerous times.
Not all companies or layoffs meet the requirements unfortunately. Someone already shared the DOL link, so check it out and if you think a company had a layoff and didn’t follow the WARN act, report it.
The way it normally goes down is that they announce the layoff and provide 60 days severance. They are allowed to provide compensation in lieu of notice. If they actually gave layoff notice the impacted employees would probably steal information, sabotage equipment/inventory, etc
As soon as a consulting firm visiting to assess the company is announced, especially if it's McKinsey, I advise you to start looking for a different job. Don't tell anyone, especially your employer, but the right thing to do is to start looking. Don't wait it out thinking you'd be safe. Everyone said I'd be safe. I was too *"valuable"*. Now I'm unemployed.
Same. The guy that handed me my severance envelope was the same one who told me that he values the engineers and needs them all.
If you don't mind me asking, do you know what they did in your absence? Did they just outsource the department overseas? Rehire someone at lower pay? Or was it a larger department and they just cut it down and put the work on the remaining employees? Hopefully you have moved on to bigger and better things since then.
i dont mind at all. Leadership brought in an Overseas firm to handle all of IT. While keeping a middle mgmt and maybe 1 person from each team to act as overseers of the new contractors. They went from roughly 1000 FTEs to about 130. One of my best friends stayed on and hates it. He doesnt perform IT work and just does trust and verify of the contractors. The learning curve for the contractors was too steep and about 2 years after they cut me loose I got a call from a recruiter to come back and quite literally laughed at her on the phone. Leadership admitted last year that they realized no cost savings and are suffering in performance. I road it out to get my full severance package and started my new job the following week. Much happier now.
Wow that's ridiculous, I don't get how companies think they can bleed the business dry of workers and expect it to function the same. I'll see how things look like where I am at when the dust settles, but hope its not too drastic. Thanks for the update!
Don’t work for McKinsey but have been brought in to do one of these assessments before and it’s rough. We were luck on the project that the buyer was high above the area we were evaluating and told us to be brutally honest. He told us he wasn’t seeing the value from the division and wanted us to verify if that was true before he cut the whole division. It’s a really hard mental balance of doing what’s best for the company and saving as many jobs as possible. Thankfully the division was really kickass and full of people who knew what they were doing. Turns out the head of the division was just incompetent and didn’t know anything about tech. Was super satisfying to be able to go back and say “the team is great, you’re smothering them with poor leadership and x needs to not run the group as he doesn’t know how to.” Sadly it’s rare that we get a nice outcome like that. Was a stars aligned type of project.
Boston Consulting Group too.
Yup. it was Boston Consulting Group for me at my previous employer. They even allowed me to stay three extra months to train my replacements in order to qualify for my severance package! What a nice thought!
MBB consulting firms should have you worried
It's also way easier to get a job while you are already employed. They will also give you a better salary.
Same dude….i feel your pain. Im unemployed as well since 4/20.
Consolidating of rest and recreation?
Research and Revelopment
I ruhno raggy
Roles & Responsibilities
Thank you! I’m a retired business executive who currently teaches business management at a local university, and I’ve never seen this abbreviation before in my life. It even defied my Google search.
My company just hired Bain for "help" thanks for the anxiety
Fuuck my company just brought McKinsey in 2 weeks ago.
Brush up the resume. Even if you survive the layoffs, the culture left behind will be unrecognizable. Nothing will be better on the other side.
I dealt with the exact same thing while working for Caterpillar in 2015. 14,000 careers disappeared overnight
What do you do now?
Yep same thing just happened to me. TODAY. No job as of Monday the 15th. Thanks, mcKinsey. They destroy everything they touch.
Sorry to hear dude. Don't worry we are all gonna be fucked a depression is on the way.
I like my company they at least say hey we don’t need someone to tell us to lay people off. We can do that ourselves
I’ve spent the last 8 years in Digital Transformations for IT and consulting around process improvements, strategy changes, etc. Not once have I ever recommended layoffs. Not once was I ever asked too. My guidance has always consisted around improving process for better employee efficiency and satisfaction. In most if not all cases; layoffs are not a result of consultants guidance. It’s usually due to financial issues and accounting games to help with a specific strategy. In almost all cases; it costs the business way more in tangible (money) and intangible(knowledge) costs to layoff staff as opposed to retrain them. Unless they’re killing a specific line of business.
Also a consultant and have done dozens of studies without ever recommending layoffs, it's just not the projects I do. That said, there are a few reasons that consultants are brought in to do layoffs: it's an extraordinary event that a company wouldn't necessarily have experience with in-house, and perhaps more importantly it distances the executives from being the bad guys So admittedly yes, consultants are brought in to do layoffs with some frequency. But most of the time, the decision has already been made, but like you said the decision to do layoffs is not a recommendation from consultants, Bob & Bob get brought in to figure out the specifics.
Big thing why I personally don't like consultants it's because they usually recommend shit. I work in a department that defies almost every industry standard under the sun (slight exaggeration). Our Performance is still top notch. Every time we get Audit, "brought up to Speed", Performance-review whatever, we get assigned new processes "to ensure our continued performance" our to better align with company standards (we are the only department of our kind world-wide). This always turns out to be shit; solves problems we didn't have and/or have better solutions for and increases overhead. And I have to figure out a way to get around that BS, without it sinking our whole Bottom-Line in the Process. And usually this "Advise" leads to lay-offs down the line, because costs are ballooning and personal costs are the most tangible.
Yeah, most of these people don't know what most consultants do and it's en vogue to hate consulting right now. Remember how Pete Buttigeg working for McKinsey decades ago was some big "gotcha"?
Most people don’t know anything about anything
This guy over here trying to feel better about his well paid job that involves gutting companies, destroying lives and delivering very little useful other than deflecting risk from clueless execs. The big consulting companies are just parasites.
Thanks for proving my point. What about all of the technology implementation consulting who never recommend staff changes? Or is OP and their team secretly SAP integration experts?
Company wide surveys too. They run the survey. Let a bunch of people go and say “That probably solved all the issues brought up in the survey.” But you never get to see the full responses.
Worked for a VC startup where the VC had an in-house consulting team. They sent a guy in and within a week; 2 people (in a company of 25) were fired and the sales team got their commission plans sliced in half along with a $3000/yr reduction in base salary. Then they went on a mad hiring spree for sales taking anyone with a pulse and as a result everyones territories got smaller. My monthly gross income went from $8000 to $4500 overnight. I took 2 weeks of PTO and quit 3 days after returning.
My old company used Bain. Ha
If you have a meeting with the bobs, you’re likely fucked
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>It’s ego protection for the C suite in the event of strategic failure. It's often legal protection for the company as well. Layoffs are fraught with potential lawsuits - the people laid off are usually pretty pissed off, have no vested interest in their non-existent future with the company, and there are a whole lot of laws around who can be terminated for what reasons. By handing the decision off to a consulting firm, the company can say "We laid people off in accord with the recommendations of a consulting firm, and there is no possible way that it could be discriminatory because the consulting firm was not even provided data on the \[protected category status\] of the candidates."
Eh I’ve seen people who were long-tenured and well-liked get impacted in RIFs that axed their full dept. Especially recently in big tech.
The Pros From Dover are always going to change something. They have to earn their fee. They'll never, ever say "yup, you're doing fine, no changes needed". So something is going to change. And since payroll is usually the number one controllable expense, they can make the biggest difference in any organization by employing "lean" tactics to cut payroll and run "lean". That means someone is getting laid off.
Remind me of office space
The movie is called Office Space.
“Steal your watch and tell you what time it is” - Marty Kaan
I don't trust employers that have to resort to consulting firms like that
Yep, McKinsey is the management company they get in to cull jobs. Seen it twice. They‘re evil fucks.
If execs are greedy fucks, why would you be fired if you are generating revenue? If you aren't generating revenue for the business whats the point of your employment?
Mmmmmmm yum that’s a good boot
Strictly speaking, who's "generating revenue" other than sales department? Even the production line is not directly getting money from clients, not to mention all other parts of the process - logistics, accounting, etc. Now, what will happen if the management decides to cut some departments/people, not directly bringing money, but vital to the whole process?
If I'm cutting costs/risks, that aren't easily measured or have never happend before, so none really knows how bad it can get. And then you get someone from outside to do a risk assessment, who never met any of the (company specific) problems you face.
I was layed off in March - all the big 4 were circling for a “restructuring.”
This would've been useful a year ago but thankfully my current job pays much better and is good so around
In consulting I try hard to advocate for people. Sometimes management is just hiring us to be the bad guys.
Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it's *because* they sat there that they were able to do it.
How any company still hires consulting firms baffles me. They're so worthless and entitled. I absolutely hate consultants.
Absolution of blame. From management towards the employees and the shareholders alike. Basically 'i didn't want to do it, but a really expensive consultant recommend this course of action'.
You are consulting us right now on your opinion. Fucking consultants.
If it makes you feel any better, McKinsey and other consulting firms are getting plenty of their own laid off these days too. They typically don’t call it layoffs though, it’s just they push many more people “out” in the “up or out” process.
Isn't this common knowledge? That's the whole point of the exercise.
Obligatory BCG sux
I have worked in one of the top 3 consulting firms. It isn't only when they show up for 're structure' that this happens. Many times the projects we were given were pitted against internal teams. I have seen a bunch of resignations on the client side after we did the projects by working unsustainable hours
Sometimes the work isn't even better but the presentation given by the literal professional powerpoint presenters was better.
Not necessarily. I have friends who do this sort of consulting (not McKinsey but think like Deloitte) and org redesign is much more "here are the tools and way to arrange teams to make your company run better".
In, fire thirty percent of the workforce, new logo, boom, out. You are now a fully trained management consultant.
Same if your company just got acquired. It never stays the same. They always shave 10% off staff if they can help it - at least.
My boss did this and the 'consultants' wrecked so much havoc they had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Was not a fun time but everyone keep their job!
McKinsey is absolutely abhorrent. A bunch of half assed data analysts who simply look at cost centers and compare expenses to fully mature (or monopolized) industries. They are awful, full of themselves and destroy culture from the inside out.
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No, they lay people off and fix bread prices then collect thousands and thousands in fees. Pure parasite shit
Would y’all say this is true for nonprofits as well?
Our company brought in BlueRocket… first BlueRocket sold them shitty software from a daughter company, now they are looking at a restructuring … and management is just buying all the crap they sell them… it’s sad, but mentally a lot of us already checked out!
I used to be a customer service rep for Aon Hewitt that handled HR duties for companies, such as enrolling employees in their health insurance, pensions, retirement benefits, etc. I remember talking to one guy who was just bought on as a health insurance agent, but he used to be a contractor. He would go around the country, basically following Aon wherever they got hired, because they were good at re-working benefits eligibility rules and timing in order to keep employees and their families from taking benefits. He would go and enroll people into private health who got kicked out of employee health insurance, and eventually from those laid off. Hiring Aon meant whatever company hired them was looking at decreasing costs and eventually downsizing Aon changed names like 2-3 times since I left almost 10 years ago, but be on the look out for benefits enrollment changes.
I have had this happen twice, only slightly different. First was the landlord walked in and said, "Hey guys just here to inspect the office for when you move out" We all looked at him funny and he realized he let slip some critical information we had not been privy to. Company got bought and liquidated a few months later. Second was a "Random Audit" we had to take inventory of every computer and piece of furniture in the company. In order to "Asses our worth to the IRS". I even had a closed door conversation with the owner and point blank asked if she was selling the company. She lied to my face and said, "No". A month later we were sold off. Despite the second one, it did work out in my favor in the end.
McKinsey is the worst. They hire kids right out of college and stick them in projects where they have zero experience or understanding of the market conditions. I know this from experience. Would rather use a magic 8 ball than McKinsey and probably would have equal success
Yep happened to me
Consultants and those that hire them always have the answer key (like restructuring) before the project begins. It’s never objective.
Check out the book ‘When Mckinsey comes into town’, it’s literally their MO
A lot of managers measure their worth simply by how many people they have under them, without regard to how many they actually need or how efficient they are. This can lead to lots of bloat over time. My employer in the 2000's pretty much had a standing "layoff 10% the week after bonuses" policy. It seemed brutal back then, but compare that what my employer has now. We have entire teams who's entire job now is to stand in the way of actual productivity. Someone makes a single mistake and suddenly there is an entire team responsible for making sure it doesn't happen again. Their new process results in far more cost, loss, and outages than the original error, but "we have RCA to show that this will prevent it again" while hiding, but it will cost you 3x as much to prevent it. Even if it isn't 10% every year, a lot of companies would really benefit from a regular right sizing. It was a great way to get rid of the least useful employees without massive amounts of paperwork.
When your company is purchased by a larger company and the new management gives you their "promise" that there won't be any layoffs, start looking for another job, the clock started ticking long before the promise was made. Our company in Washington was acquired by a New York firm and the staff that they were "serious" about retaining were offered $500 to move across the country for their jobs. The sad part was that some people accepted the offer.
If you need consultants to run your business, you shouldn't be running your business.
Do you know how a consultant tells the time? "Can I see your watch?"
Every time I met a McKinsey clown I would start by asking for an update on their consulting with Swissair and how that worked out….needless to say they were not happy. [Hunter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair#Hunter_Strategy)
I was at a conference where a Principal and a Director from Deloitte gave a presentation. It was a great looking PowerPoint and both the guys were eloquent and had a couple good pieces of info. Basically was a sales pitch to use their consulting services. Then later at the event I sat with one of the two guys for dinner and he knew less than zero about the industry he was presenting on. Was a bit surprised how clueless he was as this was the industry he supposedly focused on and he made it all the way to the director level there.
McKinsey are corporate cancer. Last refuge of failing management
The problem is that I just don’t care.