This Is What Consultants Won’t Tell You

[dadgarage]

Consultants conveniently recommend the unpopular decisions and divert responsibility from managers and directors. For a small fee.

[Diptera_Larvae]

Let’s never forget that PwC's was hired by the Australia Government to design laws that would get big overseas companies like Google, Facebook and Apple to pay their fair share of tax in Australia.

They then used that knowledge to advise multinational corporations on how to skirt the new laws.

I feel like this news story needs repeating.

[gabrielajonczyk]

Consultants pretend that they do something glamorous when they do people dirty.

[stewpear]

A friend of mine worked on that McKinsey trash can study. The majority of the study was to prove that new york streets had the capacity for those waste bins and if there were other methods to trash collection. A large amount was civil engineers going through the City’s civil street plans to see if they could use the UK’s underground trash dumpsters. The answer to the question, “are waste bins better than just leaving trash bags on the side of buildings?” Was really easy. They were then asked to prove it with multiple studies. This was on New York asking a dumb question and then requiring studies to prove the dumb question.

[piscesaj]

I'm a tax consultant. I do corporate state and local tax returns. I supplement the tax staff during the tax season. I'm not sure what the hell these consultants do. It makes me not want to be called a consultant

[censusgary]

“Do trash cans work?”

If only there were communities who had ever used trash cans, we wouldn’t have to commission a study.

[R.Eg.S]

I think part of the issue is there is a difference between say expert consultants eg someone did years/decades in a particular industry & now they’re consulting & providing their decades of experience to assist companies that may lack it. But the vast majority are business consultants eg recent college grads often out of MBA programs that largely are just providing something a company’s leadership can point to to justify (to the board to the shareholders etc) what they want to do.

It often takes the form of mass layoffs and gutting hard won things workers may have gained (but haven’t been say able to protect eg a union contract) to goose quarterly profits which are usually a huge part of leadership’s compensation.

Sometimes said consultants will then go work in government and use the position not for the public good but to facilitate favorable things for their former bosses outright or more often obfuscating it a bit by getting a new policy adopted becoming THE “expert” and then quitting and going back to the companies they just benefitted.

[warlockpaladin]

It also seems like a good way to launder money through people who don't have the proper credentials.

[Bcompassionate]

Some consultants create equity in the workplace for business that want to be more diverse.
Some consultants teach practices to prevent burnout.
Some consultants definitely teach how to exploit employees, and others support meeting accessibility, goals for teams and work places.
Some are paid well for what they do, some are abused.

Consultants can’t be defined simply. I look forward to hearing more.

[Tyiion]

Funny how that Tik Tok shows a woman playing a song about Karma, of all things, while working as a big five consultant.

[purdysanchez]

Consulting is basically a way for managers to shift blame. It's not always bad. Sometimes consultants offer good ideas. Not all consultants are like McKinsey.

[sirhcmi]

Not fair! Most consultants I know fill knowledge gaps in companies and help teams learn new skills to be more effective and successful, making the whole organization more profitable and stable for employees. Consultants like this are small businesses like any other trying to feed their own families while simultaneously trying to make people’s lives better.

[watamatafoyu]

Thanks for calling this out. Not enough people know how badly we're getting screwed by corporatism. Get the money out of politics or the politicians out of Washington.

[dencentbeatz]

Depends on the consultant. It’s not all the same

[markarca]

You can also add Ernst & Young and Grant Thornton, as well as KPMG and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

[artosbear]

There's a movie about what consultants do from the 90s its called Office Space

[shekharmoona]

Or restructuring pension and salary and bonus schemes that pay just below the national average then have your performance evaluation dictate your bonus to meet the national average. Meanwhile your companies competition is paying the national average with a bonus scheme on top of that.

[LuckyCharms]

Now tell us what the political consultants that unions hire do.

[wen]

Hey, consultant here. Thats not my life. It would have looked like banging my head against my desk, leaving work late to no social life, barely managing to make healthy meals. I Dont have a pet because i couldnt accomdate pet care with my schedule. I do believe that companies only hire us because they dont want to hire engineers full time to work on these things, so out sourcing is cheaper. And my company charges my labor per hour way higher than it pays me; so consultant fees can be high. I dont believe we are more deserving than the people working the line, I believe that the people working the line should make the same wages as me. We often also flag safety or comfort increase areas, for big shot clients to make us cut that out to save money. McKinsey's business model is " money - safety - humanity = profit increase", but our business model is "money + consultant - client's suggestions on cost saving = mediocre result".

[danielessex]

If these corporations didn't waste so much money on consultants.... maybe they'd actually have some profits? Theu can fire all those idiot CEOs and save a few million that way too.