The first two periods at Sauder have brought about immense learning and set an apt platform to leverage the same in global business ecosystem. The BCG case analysis gave some valuable insights into issues encompassing top organizations & also a learning that “One Size Fits All” approach is reduced to mere academic relevance in today’s dynamic and highly competitive business landscape.  

Sitting at the helm of BCG (Americas) – George Martin had recently witnessed three of his top performers express concerns owing to work-life issues. A glut of prevailing employee work-life fitment initiatives weren’t doing any justifiable good. In an endeavor to maintain the market leadership position of BCG, retaining very best talent was pivotal. Engulfed in a scenario of perfect competition that calls for always exceeding client expectations, majority of issues revolved around the following key facets:

Culture:

• The implicit value proposition that a highly remunerated employee offers BCG is slogging long hours, incessant travel, consistently deliver & perpetual availability.
• Employees obliged to stretch beyond limits courtesy millions BCG rakes in from clients.
• “Never say no” to client regime. Maintain existing client relationships at any cost.
• Minimal client-side involvement prior to handover stage of the project.
•  The “up-or-out” culture at BCG puts everything apart client satisfaction on a backburner.

Communication:

• External: Hazy client expectations lead to extended timelines and resource utilization.
• Internal: Assigning low intensity tasks to team during peak load hours as high priority.
• Internal: Multiple simultaneous engagements inhibit team leads to impart clear cut direction on certain deliverable leading to last moment rework.

Control:

• Adhoc reviews, eternal client exigencies, environment of non-denial & no clear visibility of day to day work regime severely affects professional and personal engagements.
• Extensive demand of top performers by various teams leads to severe work-life issues.
• Initial reward-sacrifice tradeoff leads to eventual meltdown in full throttle performance.

In an endeavor to address the work-life balance issues prevailing at BCG, George Martin should consider the following strategy framework:

Strategy Formulation:

Culture:

• Ensure desired resource and expertise availability before committing to any project.
• Nurturing cross level relation relationships to reduce communication gap
• Encourage proactive day-to-day work-life planning regime amongst employees.

Communication:

• Set precise client expectations on project scope, timelines & review structure.
• Superiors to portray clear task intensity image to team to facilitate prioritization.

Control:

• Ensure constant client side involvement in projects to avert last moment scuffles.
• Ample bench strength & buffer time to alleviate pressures on high performers.

Strategy Implementation:

Culture:

• Formalize procedure to capture resource availability prior to project commitment.
• Assign mentors to guide entry level employees like associates & consultants.
• Make the flexible work options more lucrative by reducing the salary disparity. Provide options for flexi-timing & flexi-location during low intensity tasks.

Communication:

• Project charter should clearly mention scope of work, delivery timelines & review periodicity. Applicable penalties in aberration scenarios should be cited as well.
• Anonymous complaint redressal mechanism & skip-level reviews to address issues like work-overload, senior’s lack of support & clear expectation setting on deliverables.

Control:

• Project charter should also include continuous client support requirements.
• Maintain trained bench strength to assist other teams in high workload scenarios

Strategy Evaluation:

Culture:

• Keep a track on business opportunity loss as a result of forgone projects because of resource unavailability and rake in additional resources if required.
• Put a process in place to capture mentor relationship feedback.
• Regularly monitor employee uptake of flexible work options and seek feedback in case of low levels and suggest amends to make them opt for it.

Communication:

• Scrutinize client’s charter deviations & BCG SLA non-adherence & levied penalties.
• Have regular employee satisfaction feedback post addressing their grievances.

Control:

• Gather feedback from teams working on client projects on client support and availability during project schedule.
• Closely monitor bench strength preparedness and ensure healthy bench rotation.
• Thus the most befitting approach to address the issues at BCG (A) comprises of an amalgamation of organizational level strategic changes by BCG and employee level individual efforts.

By incorporating the suggested strategic measures BCG will not only be in a far better position to retain the best talent in the industry with enhanced productivity levels but proper delegation of its rejuvenated and motivated workforce will lead to build better camaraderie with its clients and in turn will impart a distinctive competitive advantage to BCG over its competitors resulting in higher profitability levels.