| Firm: Booz Allen Hamilton Location: McLean, Va. Billable consultants: 3,000 Who knew? One out of every five employees takes advantage of Booz Allen Hamilton's tuition reimbursement plan, costing the firm more than $10 million annually. |
It's training day at Booz Allen Hamilton. Of course, these days every day is training day at Booz Allen Hamilton. That's because training and employee development plays a critical role in everything the firm does—from bringing new employees into the fold to succession planning to appraisals. "As a firm, we passionately believe in training and development," says Cesare Mainardi, head of commercial business in North America for Booz Allen Hamilton. "We think it is absolutely central to our ability to deliver results to our clients. We think it's essential to our value proposition of whoever joins us and stays with the firm. That's why I think people are attracted to this firm. We view training as part of our social contract with them."
Mainardi couldn't be more on the mark. Several consultants who took our survey emphasized Booz Allen's culture of training as a big reason why they were initially attracted to the firm, and cited the firm's efforts as a major advantage to working at Booz Allen. Charles Caldroney, a consultant with the firm, says, "If a colleague were looking to join a major consulting firm, I would emphasize Booz Allen's commitment to staff training and development."
Mainardi says the investment is important because the profession tends to draw the type of person who is eager to develop professionally. "I think we tend to attract consultants who are very much interested in making an impact," he says. "They are attracted to a firm that has set out as its objective the ability to do things that are different with clients," he says. "I think a lot of people come to consulting because they are looking for further development and to become future leaders, and the kind of work we're doing is more consistent with what top management does day in and day out.
"Top management doesn't just sit there and do market studies all day; they're figuring out how to drive results. That's what we're doing. We are in a world where [our consultants] can do great things for clients and be a part of this winning and growing firm, and they can develop personally and professionally. There's a lot there that makes this a great place to work."
Just how much of an investment does Booz Allen make in employee development? The firm has ranked in the Top 10 on Training magazine's annual Training Top 100 ranking of the best companies for employee development for the last five years. Booz Allen was No. 1 in 2006. According to the publication, the firm currently employs 86 full-time and 200 part-time trainers. It also allocates some 6.5 percent of its payroll budget to employee training and development.
 | "I think we tend to attract consultants who are very much interested in making an impact." — Cesare Mainardi Head of Commercial, N.A., Booz Allen Hamilton |
That type of investment certainly isn't lost on employees. But when the investment really pays off, Mainardi says, is when the consultants are face-to-face with clients. "There's a piece of development that happens at Booz Allen that I think is special," Mainardi says. "Here, we stress a culture of inclusion. What people learn how to do here is how to team—with each other and with clients. [They learn] how we marry up industry expertise with the right functional skills. How we bring the best that we have to bear against any client situation."
In his 21 years at Booz Allen, Mainardi has seen this concept of "team" grow into one of the firm's core values. "Everything we do—how we're organized, how we measure and appraise, how we reward, how we go to market—all started with this notion that we're going to win because we're going to team better than someone else," Mainardi says. "There's learning that happens every day just by being a part of this culture, and I think that's a big part of the magic here."
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