The Boston Consulting Group is a model of consistency. For starters, it is the only firm that's been on our Best Firms To Work For list every single year since the rankings debuted in 2001. That's eight consecutive years. In fact, BCG has never dropped out of the Top 5, and it's occupied the No. 2 spot for the last two years.
It's obvious there are many benefits to working at The Boston Consulting Group. One of the biggest, however, just may be the benefits. With healthcare front and center on the political docket these days, BCG consultants gave scores that were nearly off the charts in terms of the healthcare provided by the firm. "Providing employees with sound health benefits has always been a key issue for BCG," says Hans-Paul Buerkner, president and CEO of the firm. "The issue of healthcare is very prevalent and there's a lot of talk about it, so I think even for relatively young people, healthcare's more on their minds than maybe it has been in the past."
And in this ultra-competitive market, having the best benefits in the business has to be a huge selling point to those young people looking at consulting as a career. "It's more out of a sense of responsibility and caring for our employees than it is about being used as a strategic weapon," he says. "It's really just about us caring for and supporting our colleagues around the world."
Of course, there are other great aspects to BCG. On the survey, consultants gave the firm high marks in the area of Career Development, an area that BCG has historically always excelled in. "That is one of the most important reasons—if not the most important reason—why someone joins a consulting firm," Buerkner says. "So, a lot of emphasis is placed on helping people learn, helping people develop their skill sets, developing their leadership capabilities. If you want to become a great leader in business, it's not sufficient to be a great intellect, you also need to have the capability to deal with people, lead them, mobilize them, motivate them, and I think that has become a real focus for us over the last several years."
Another focus for BCG over the last few years, says Buerkner, is how the firm works. A big part of BCG's culture is focused around teams. On the survey, BCG scored a 4.76 out of a possible 5.00 when respondents were asked if their firm fosters a team-oriented culture. "The teaming aspect has been emphasized very strongly at BCG. So, teaming is key, not just on the local level but across offices, across practice areas and across different countries," Buerkner says. "Initially, teaming can be difficult, especially when people come from very different backgrounds, but I think people now really appreciate the enormous potential that teaming brings. People see that if they join forces, they can achieve things that are way beyond their own expectations."
And teaming has led to meeting client expectations. "The idea of teaming is not just to generate great ideas and solutions," Buerkner says. "It's about mobilizing the client, getting things going and pushing the boundaries with the client. That's one of the biggest advantages."
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