Top Firms Still Train... Even in Tough Times

But those ramifications, Wolff says, are typically more on the order of priority shifts and ensuring a demonstrable return on investment, not on scrapping programs altogether. "What we try to do is make sure our training is on the mark, really relevant and valuable and not deal with some of the other stuff that either is or might be perceived as being less important. We recognize the fluctuations and the cycles of the market and try to work around them."

Wolff's—and PwC's—dedication to making sure consultants are armed with the most relevant, up-to-date information and skills to take to their clients, in spite of concern around cost, is something one will find at other standout firms as well.

"For us to cut back on our training and development would be like an airline deciding not to maintain its engines," adds Nathaniel Greene, CEO of Stroud Consulting, which ranked No. 1 on Consulting magazine's Best Small Firms to Work For list, which was published in the September/October issue. "You just can't do it. It doesn't matter what the economy's like. We have to continue to invest [in people]."

And investment means time—and money. Information technology consulting firm Avanade, for instance, saw a tremendous jump in its fiscal year 2007-2008 training budget. The firm actually increased its investment by 41 percent, a number that represents a lot of business streamlining the consultancy has done over the past year. The firm has taken those training dollars and invested them in what it feels is a key program—a new career pathing system, which gives employees a firm sense of what classes they need to take and what certifications they need to obtain in order to advance.

"There are very few companies—I can count them with my fingers—that have actually been able to align their training and learning roadmaps so specifically to their performance management and to their career advancement model, so that all of them are connected," explains Mahnaz Javid, vice president of global learning and development at Avanade. "And I think that our employees clearly see that [we do]."

And while consultants at Avanade learn in a variety of settings, one of the most cost-effective may be through just going to work every day.

"Avanade really fosters a collaborative and connected kind of community culture. So that really drives the learning strategy. We believe a lot of people learn on the job while they're doing their job."

The Next Training Hurdle: IFRS

So as training departments and human resource managers are tasked with making sure training programs are as relevant and cost effective as possible, what topics are making the short list?

Training managers at both KPMG and PwC emphasize the importance of having a staff that is trained in a radical shift in the accounting world. Most U.S. companies currently follow the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) standard of reporting, but now, thanks to the recent urging of the Securities and Exchange Commission, those firms are converting to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Many international firms, and international offices of U.S. firms, are already reporting in this manner, but the change is largely new for the U.S. So that means firms are at all levels of conversion: Some have already done it, some are about to, and still others most likely won't be doing so for another few years.

"IFRS is a huge thing for us right now," PwC's Wolff says, saying that the client demand, and by extension, the needed training demand, is growing. "All of a sudden firms can report using global standards versus U.S. standards, and the potential ramifications for that are going to be pretty good."

KPMG sees the IFRS conversion as a two-front war: One to be fought at the professional level, but one also to be fought at the university level. "We've been teaming with a number of universities to help them build their curriculum around IFRS," says Lynne Doughtie, KPMG national managing partner, advisory.

But, she adds, KPMG's own consultants—and clients—must also be up to speed. "Last year, it was on the radar, but pretty far down, and now that this can become a reality, particularly with some of our larger clients. There's a huge need to educate client personnel and our own personnel." To facilitate that learning process, KPMG has launched a number of courses around IFRS, but also has opened an IFRS project management office to handle client demand.

Doughtie emphasizes that training around IFRS isn't limited to instructing consultants about a few accounting changes. "It's a major, major undertaking and it impacts really every piece of our business—from the audit side, the tax accounting will change, and then on the advisory side, how do we help our clients really go through this process?"

Firm-Specific Needs

IFRS' importance, though, doesn't diminish the need for other types of training within the consulting world. Each firm has its own method for ensuring its consultants are well equipped to handle client work.

Avanade, for example, must ensure its consultants have all their required Mircosoft certifications, says Wayne S. Anderson, Avanade's manager of technical training development and certification. That's an attainable goal for consultants at Avanade, who, Anderson says, have been known to achieve challenging Microsoft certifications ahead of Microsoft's own consultants. So building time into a consultant's schedule to study for a certification is a necessity, and both Javid and Anderson stress that the company works with consultants to make sure they have the resources to get those accreditations.

But it's not easy when client engagements also must be a priority. "We have to recognize the simple fact that they're very busy professionals; they're in the field; they're all over the world; they have a variety of needs," Anderson says, adding that the aforementioned career patting tool helps consultants to streamline this process as much as possible.

At Stroud, Greene says a program that's been very popular is its Small Group Sessions. The firm started holding them about two years ago, and is expanding the effort next year. Consultants meet for a few hours to discuss an assigned topic, typically around client service, in an intimate, focused setting.

"[It's a] benefit of the size of our firm. It's just a chance to talk with people and a time to step back and work on personal development," Greene explains, adding that this kind of training is more proactive than reactive. "Any time you have to take something good and make it even better, you feel good and get a sense of fulfillment, and it's not just a sense of you've been doing something wrong and now you need to correct it. That's the sort of training that's horrible," he says.

KPMG, meanwhile, is making sure its corporate university, Advisory University, meets consultant and firm needs alike. That's just one of the reasons the firm tries to ensure its classes are taught by the firm's own leaders, which "really makes sure our training folks are very connected to our business," Doughtie says.
Advisory University (AU) is truly modeled after a traditional university. "We offer certain colleges within the university that you can break down by specialized skills," Doughtie says. "But in addition to the technical skills, we also provide a broad range of training opportunities for every aspect that a professional might need throughout his or her career."

KPMG also is looking at ways to unite its global community, and sees AU as an ideal way to do that, Doughtie says. "We've invited our colleagues from other countries to attend the Advisory University [programs] that we have in the U.S., and it really creates a nice environment where you have that international perspective as you're talking about a particular topic."

The importance of making AU a global program is that serves both consultant and client, as members of both categories continue to represent more and more backgrounds and cultures. The idea of keeping the clients' perspective in mind speaks to the very purpose of having any training programs in place at all, or, as Doughtie sums up: "The world is more global; our clients are becoming more global, [so we make] that part of the training experience as well."

Sidebar: Imagine That… Deloitte's Senior People Go Back to School

One of Deloitte Consulting's most recent training challenges, says principal Ken Porrello, was ensuring its seniormost people were swimming, not sinking, and so the firm developed a mentoring program specifically for them.

"Historically with people at that level, when you were promoted to director or admitted into the partnership as a principal, you kind of got a hearty handshake and told to do well," says Porrello, a co-leader of the Imagine program. "We wanted to look at a more strategic and structured way at how we were developing our most senior people's development."

Imagine, a highly structured yearlong program, takes Deloitte's most senior principals and directors and pairs them with slightly junior colleagues. Mentors and mentees discuss professional and personal topics, the former including what training the mentee needs in order to advance and the latter including how to better manage work/life balance.

Mentees are invited into the program, which has seen more than 400 participate since its 2005 launch. "When invitations are extended, the acceptance rate on the invitation is typically well in excess of 90 percent even though this requires a commitment between 60 and 80 hours during the year. It's a significant time commitment; it requires a series of in-person meetings," Porrello says.

However, Porrello emphasizes, the philosophy behind the mentoring program is what makes it unique. "When we took the first group of mentors through the training and we told them—not quite these words, but it was fairly clear to them—that everything they'd been doing as a mentor and a coach was wrong, people didn't take too well to that initially." Porrello says the program emphasizes mentees figuring out solutions to problems themselves, instead of being told by a mentor what to do. It may sound like a small shift, but it had big consequences.

"When people really got turned around on it was when they started to work with their mentees and started to use a different approach and then some of the most enthusiastic proponents of the program now are people who initially expressed the most concerns about it," he says.

As far as other training advancements, Porrello says the firm is partnering with universities in order to provide more opportunities to its consultants. "We're trying to encourage more of our people to take advantage of external training opportunities," he says.