The 2022 Best Small Firms to Work For: Treacy & Company

Client Industries Served: Industry Agnostic, but recent clients have been in Health Care, Industrials, CPG, Financial Services

Consulting Service Lines: Strategy & Innovation

CMAG: How would you say you've managed to stay among the industry's Best Small Firms to Work For amid these unprecedented times?

We took the best of our culture and the close-knit environment (what used to bring us together) and evolved it to work in a fully hybrid model. When COVID-19 hit, we actively leaned into to being video on, if at all possible, to maintain our close connections to each other during internal brainstorming sessions. We also implemented bi-weekly virtual wellness events, like virtual Pictionary or yoga, to bring everyone together even if we're miles apart. Since the pandemic hit, we've also put in a lot of cultural practices. For example, we've created a community team that plans weekly events. When we have group lunches, people will typically come into our Chicago or Boston office. We have done laser tag, happy hours, etc.

We encourage people to be in the office two days a week, but we make it flexible—empowering our people to make their own in-person schedule has brought flexibility that's been encouraging and life-giving for the team.

CMAG: Were there any specific programs or initiatives (internal or external) that contributed to you being a Best Small Firm to Work For?

Standing up as a formal community team helped us become a stronger, more tight-knit organization. We focused efforts on bringing people together in either a virtual or remote setting.

Another thing we do that our team members really appreciate: We encourage people to work cross-office (meaning team members who typically work in Chicago will travel to our Boston office to work for a week and vice versa).

Lastly, we conduct a monthly internal net promoter score among employees. We want them to tell us how they're doing and ensure that our team members are satisfied with our organization. We want to listen to them and adapt as needed.

CMAG: What's unique about your firm? What sets it apart?

We're a relatively small firm with 40 people, and we've made that an asset. We punch way above our weight in terms of the clients we serve, counting a lot of Fortune 500 and private multi-billion-dollar companies as customers we've worked with.

We work on big, transformational projects for our clients. They will keep us around for 12 to 18 months and continue to work with us for a longer period than what is traditional for other consulting practices.

Another differentiator for us is that our analysts get a seat at the table on teams working closely with executives and CEOs. Even first-year analyst team members get to listen in on conversations with executive teams of major companies. Therefore, we say a year at T&Co feels like four years elsewhere.

CMAG: What's the top priority over the next 6 to 12 months?

We are in hyper-growth mode, so we're constantly searching for strong talent. Our priority is to maintain our culture as we scale. We love the culture we have as a 40-person firm. The question we're constantly working through: How do we maintain that as a 100-person firm?

Our second priority is to expand the types of areas we serve. We're looking at key areas such as concept design, sustainability, pricing, and product launch/development to continue to expand our practice.

CMAG: When you look at the remainder of this year and 2023, what excites you? What opportunities do you see in your future?

Now that we've hit our stride with hybrid working, we're looking forward to bringing back elements of our old culture but keeping the flexibility our team has come to appreciate with a some-days-in-some-days-remote model.

We leverage the Industrious model which has worked quite well for us in both Boston and Chicago (we can scale office space/needs very quickly depending on people and project needs).

CMAG: What impact do you think being a Best Small Firm to Work For has on the firm? Employees? Clients?

For employees, there is definitely a pride element with being named a top firm. In addition to the recognition with Consulting Magazine, we've just been named on Fortune's 2022 Best Small Workplaces™ list!

We know the work we do and the community we're building for our team and clients—it's nice to get recognized and feel validated by leading media too. We put a lot of effort into maintaining our culture. Our clients appreciate it too. It's nice to showcase our work and capabilities so we're able to help even more clients in the future.

CMAG: Thank you, and congratulations.