Name: Slalom Consulting Headquarters: Seattle Billable Consultants: 360 Who knew? For a charity bike ride to benefit the American Lung Association of California, Slalom consultants volunteered to bake cookies for fellow employees and friends and family who made donations to their fundraising efforts.

John Tobin doesn’t just want employees who work hard. He wants ones who play hard, too. When talking about the culture of six-and-a-half-year-old Seattle-based Slalom Consulting, the founder and national general manager of the firm describes an environment that sounds more like a cocktail party than a consulting firm. “I don’t know if this a good thing to say, but we’re a lot of fun. I mean, we have a ton of fun with each other. We have quarterly events, and there’s some information shared, but it’s more about people getting together and collaborating on work and sharing war stories and what’s going on with clients.”

But all that fun is the result of hard work that puts the client first, Tobin says. “I think that we’re more ‘executionists’ than strategists. We’re going to do [additional] things that are not asked of us because it’s the right thing to do. We step up.”

That stepping up extends internally, too, as Tobin points out the firm is centered around flexibility. He says of the full-suite firm: “We provide our consultants a lot of avenues to go,” adding that’s thanks in part to having so many different practices as well a no-travel-required policy. “[We have] the usual type of practices that might be within a larger company, but it’s just all on a smaller scale and in a local model. What it means for consultants is that they have a flexible choice for what they want to do.”

Flexibility also means that consultants can take a sabbatical after three years at the firm. For a month, consultants get 75 percent of their pay as they take what Tobin calls their “dream-come-true break.” Employees’ plans range from cross-country biking to world travel. And when sometimes those plans don’t exactly fit into that month-long break, Tobin’s accommodating. “We’re OK with people taking long stints off from the company,” explaining that one of the firm’s consultants is an aspiring professional golfer.

Tobin finds that he, however, needs to be flexible when it comes to that no-travel policy. He says he likes to be hands on when it comes to everything from selecting new hires to drumming up new business. “Our whole model is no travel, [but] to make sure we hire similar types of people…I like to make sure that I’m working with the recruiters, that I’m working with the general managers as they’re picking who their leaders are, especially to get the foundation in place. I also do a lot of business development [as well].”

Another time flexibility paves the way for success is when the firm is working with global companies such as Microsoft and Starbucks. Sometimes working with such expansive companies does require travel, but other times, as Tobin points out, the company is selective about the types of clients it takes on because of their potential overseas needs. “The difference really comes down to the people and our culture. Every decision we make is based around: What is a great thing for our client? And then the other side of it is: What is a great thing for our consultant?”

“We  provide a lot of avenues. [Our consultants] have a flexible choice for what they want to do.”   —John Tobin, Founder, Slalom

Liz Reddy, a Portland, Ore.-based consumer insight consultant who has been with the firm for five months, says this philosophy has created for her an atmosphere she’s excited to work in. “They treat their consultants as if they’re clients,” she says. They want to make sure that we’re happy and healthy; they want to impress us.”

Consultants like Reddy demonstrate why Tobin’s model works so well, and as such he is looking to grow the firm to 12 cities within three years’ time. “We have been able to take the great things about consulting and put [them] into a model that has worked really well, and I think our growth is testimony to the success that we’ve had.”