How these firms retained staff by helping them grow
Boutique management consultancy Grosvenor has won the professional services category of the 2024 AFR Best Places to Work list.
Grosvenor has won the professional services category of the 2024 AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list after introducing a program to help employees become “visible experts” in their chosen fields.
Known as the Visible Expert Development Pathway Initiative, the program helps employees chart a course to becoming recognised experts in areas linked to the firm’s service offerings – a journey that fuses learning and development with content marketing and public speaking.
Grosvenor introduced the initiative in 2022. Internal surveys suggest it has made staff feel more engaged and motivated and given them a greater sense of autonomy.
Managing director Stefan Gassner says it has also helped the firm win new business.
“There’s quite a bit of research out there on how professional services firms can win work, and visible expertise is one of the main driving factors,” Gassner tells The Australian Financial Review. “Clients will only buy from someone who’s the expert in a specific field.”
The freelancer threat
Charitee Davies, associate director of capability, development and governance, says Grosvenor’s executive team launched the initiative partly in response to the growing allure of the freelancer economy during the pandemic.
Demand for consultants with public-sector expertise – and the day rates being offered to them – soared as governments sought assistance in responding to the rapidly changing COVID-19 health crisis.
“We saw that it was going to get pretty tough for small or mid-tier consulting firms to compete as an employer of choice,” Davies says.
And so the firm set about designing an initiative to help retain senior employees who might otherwise have been enticed to strike out on their own. Grosvenor’s leaders figured the new scheme would have to offer some of the same benefits as the freelancer economy to blunt its appeal – particularly the ability to choose what to work on.
“How can we offer the benefits and the bits that people like about contracting work, but still offer them job security and that connectedness as a team?” Davies says. “That’s how the visible expert pathway was brought to life.”
Now open to all employees, the scheme was initially targeted at more senior consultants and seen as an alternative way of recognising the contributions of experienced employees beyond promoting them to the firm’s small number of senior leadership positions.
‘Almost like a small business plan’
The initiative operates on an opt-in basis, with the process starting when an employee flags an interest in becoming a “visible expert”. Next comes a meeting with Davies, who is currently working full-time as the firm’s in-house capability and visible expert coach, to discuss potential fields of interest and how the individual could go about becoming a visible expert in one of these fields.
Together, they draw up a plan, leaning on in-house templates to articulate the capabilities that the employee hopes to develop and the outcomes they hope to deliver. Their progress is then assessed and encouraged through fortnightly catch-up sessions with Davies, while members of the executive leadership, marketing, events, finance and HR teams are engaged throughout the process to maximise the person’s success.
“They put together a plan, which is almost like a small business plan, of what this visible expert journey will do,” Gassner says.
He says the marketing team also dedicates time towards publishing and promoting content written by the firm’s visible experts. “We’re invested heavily in conference attendance as well,” he says.
More engaged, more motivated
Company data suggests the initiative has been successful. Staff sentiment, engagement and motivation scores have all improved, according to Grosvenor’s annual staff surveys, while employees’ number of public speaking engagements have also increased.
The largest improvement was seen in staff’s response to the statement, “I am involved in decisions that affect my job.” Ninety-four per cent of staff agreed with that statement in 2023, up from 75 per cent in 2022. Meanwhile, the share of staff who believe “We have special and unique benefits here” increased by 18 percentage points over the same timeframe, from 66 per cent to 84 per cent.
The annual surveys also revealed significant improvements in staff perceptions of work-life balance. The share of staff that agreed they were “able to take time off when I think it is necessary” increased from 84 per cent in 2022 to 100 per cent in 2023. Meanwhile, 94 per cent agreed they were “encouraged to balance our work and non-work life” in 2023, which was 13 percentage points higher than the year before.
The visible expert initiative underpinned Grosvenor’s bid for the top spot in the professional services category of this year’s AFR Best Places to Work list. But it’s not the only reason why the boutique firm is considered a great place to work. Gassner says Grosvenor’s status as fully employee-owned means workers have an extra incentive to create a healthy and productive culture. And he reckons the firm’s focus on work-life balance plays an important role, too.
“It’s obviously well publicised that work nowadays needs to fulfil a purpose, and it also needs to allow for things outside of work to be meaningful as well,” Gassner says, after noting that younger generations were driving a significant change in attitudes to work.
“You can’t build a business model that relies on junior resources working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and not having space for anything else in their life.”
Other drawcards, Davies says, include a values-focused approach to recruitment and twice-yearly 360-degree performance reviews.
The importance of ‘dangerous conversations’
Professional services firm Kearney also earned a special mention on the list as runners-up after introducing a scheme designed to upskill staff in a slightly different way.
It has been equipping employees with the skills required to initiate “dangerous conversations” – partly so that employees feel more comfortable raising thorny issues with colleagues internally, and partly so that they can deliver frank and fearless advice to clients.
Kearney defines a dangerous conversation as one with greater risks for the initiator than potential benefits. It might be personal, embarrassing or reveal their fears, ambitions or insecurities.
“Our role as advisors is to be able to provide quality advice in a way that can be heard,” Adam Dixon, managing partner of Kearney’s Australia and New Zealand unit, says.
“And oftentimes in consulting, it’s a younger person speaking to an older person in a position of power.”
Dixon says the initiative was designed to encourage staff to be brave and step forward. Among other things, it encompasses a handbook outlining how to have a dangerous conversation, a bimonthly interview series which features honest conversations with staff members, and sponsorship for staff to receive training and become mental health ambassadors.
“When somebody throws out, ‘I’d like to have a dangerous conversation,’ then we all know the language [and what to do next]. We’ve role-played scenarios,” Dixon says.
Advice for listeners includes “avoid the temptation to give advice” and “ask clarifying questions”.
Kearney’s employees say the initiative has improved “camaraderie” between staff, created “an ambience of psychological safety” and made junior employees feel “extremely supported”. Two in three agree they would sell more work if they engaged in more dangerous conversations with clients.
The firm says it has helped improve workplace inclusion and contributed to a two-year decline in female attrition rates from 25 per cent to 16 per cent. Meanwhile, overall satisfaction and culture scores in employee surveys have increased from 76 to 78 points and from 69 to 73 points respectively.
Dixon says the firm also passed on significant pay rises to staff during the pandemic, partly in response to a temporary increase in the employee attrition rate from 20 per cent to 30 per cent when the economy-wide Great Resignation trend was in full swing.
“In that 2021/2022 period, we jacked up our compensation substantially – I’m not going to quote how much – but very substantially, ahead of all the [high] inflation figures,” Dixon says.
Attrition duly fell to 10 per cent in 2023.
“One of the things we have introduced that has gotten amazing feedback is a Virgin Gym membership,” Dixon adds.
“We introduced [that] about 12 months ago, but we get great feedback on that perk, [and] we also offer five weeks’ holiday to everyone.”
Fully subsidised private health insurance is another attractive perk, Dixon says. And the firm has also opted to steer clear of edicts demanding staff return to the office.
“We do see real benefits in people physically being together, but we haven’t mandated anything,” Dixon says.
“It’s more principles: client first, be transparent about where you are, have an open dialogue within your team to figure out how to have maximum impact for the client and effective working.”
Dixon says spending time in the office is good for mental health, sharpens the boundaries between work and leisure, facilitates learning and mentoring, and leads to lower employee attrition.
“My overall view as a consultant advising clients is: I do think that over the medium term things will mostly go back to the way things were, but they will never go back entirely.”
Read more of the Best Places to Work special report.
- Why these companies are Australia’s best places to work A “confronting” leadership program underpinned the decision to award Seek the 2024 AFR BOSS Best Place to Work – Large Organisation.
- This company pays you for your commute with extra days off This fintech has taken a different approach to getting people back into the office.
- How this organisation prevented burnout for staff A surge in complaints to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority led to a rethink of policies, adding 500 new staff to cope with the workload.
- ‘Support and empower’: How coaching can bring out the best in staff Mindset Health provides coaching sessions that discuss ways to handle difficult situations or conflict.
- Autonomy the key to career paths at this consumer giant A shift in career planning and transparency in job ads have been central to keeping Unilever’s employees engaged.
- How a weekly Shark Tank challenge turned The Royals family around Suffering high turnover, creative agency The Royals decided to carve out a day each week dedicated to one pitch. It worked.
- Planning delays transformed into social housing solutions Developer Toga turns vacant apartments in projects awaiting planning approval into pop-up accommodation.
- Publisher aims to make workers’ lives a little easier Publisher Hachette offers a range of initiatives to help retain good staff, including a January work from home mandate.
- Employee wellbeing is a winner in the war for tech talent In a competitive market where talent is the “most-prized commodity”, a tech workplace’s offering is crucial.
- How we picked the award winners The AFR BOSS Best Places to Work ranks the best workplaces in Australia and New Zealand across nine different industries.
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