2) The Boston Consulting Group
If you're looking for validation of how things are going at The Boston Consulting Group these days, look no further than this: BCG's Class of 2012 is its largest ever. In fact, the firm has increased its global consulting staff by almost 17 percent.
It's not surprising then, that Rich Lesser, Chairman of North and South America, and CEO-elect, says his top priority is making the right people investments to sustain BCG's growth. "That means hiring top talent, training them, and retaining them," Lesser says. "It means traditional recruiting but also, selectively bringing in experienced hires at the mid- and senior levels to expand the breadth of our expertise and footprint in specific industries."
That task should be made a bit easier by the fact that BCG is the only firm that has made our Best Firms to Work For list all 12 years. And the firm has never placed lower than No. 5 in the ranking. That simply can't happen without top-down commitment across the board.
"We provide a unique opportunity to both develop individually and to work in a superb team environment," Lesser says. "Our work is not easy, but environments like ours enable people to grow and thrive and that translates into high morale. Most importantly, our people gain enormous satisfaction from the exceptional value we create for clients."
Employees also gain a great deal of satisfaction, he says, from the broad-based growth BCG has been able to achieve in recent years. "We have performed really well relative to the economy, sustaining growth in good times and bad," Lesser says.
During that time, he says BCG has been focused on building capabilities in its Public Sector, Energy and Private Equity practices, as well as investing in businesses in rapidly developing economies like China, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. In addition, BCG continues to implement, and roll out globally, an internal initiative to promote a sustainable work-life balance called PTO—Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication.
Meanwhile, BCG continues to dominate the Compensation & Benefits aspect of the survey, finishing first in that area for the fifth straight year. "We compensate our people well because we want to retain them, and they're worth it," he says.
BCG also excelled in Client Engagement. "I think this speaks to the heart of our model," Lesser says. "Our model is about bringing that depth of capability to the client. We talk a lot about enablement of our clients. It's part of who BCG is—we work alongside the client teams, collaboratively driving change and strengthening the clients' organizations at the same time."
Q&A: When you look at the remainder of this year and 2013, what excites you most about the firm?
Rich Lesser, Chairman of North and South America, CEO-elect, says: "BCG is strongly positioned to continue to succeed, regardless of any macroeconomic headwinds in the months and years ahead. We continue to build our client base and the depth and breadth of work we take on for them. We are uniquely suited to help our clients figure out how to win in volatile, rapidly changing environments, where you cannot simply use the past to predict the future. On the people side, we are attracting an extraordinary caliber of
diverse individuals at all levels. Our retention is also very strong, and this is creating a robust platform to support future growth."
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