BCG allows consultants, partners to take time off every week to pursue their interests

NEW DELHI: It's a breakneck 60-70 hour work-week profession that can often lead to burnouts and early exits. But, a unique experiment conducted by The Boston Consulting Group in association with Harvard Business School (HBS) could be the solution for consultants looking for some time out.

Called PTO, or Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication, the programme, which started out as a pilot in the US and in BCG's India's office a few years ago, will now be rolled out across the firm this year.

PTO will enable consultants and partners across BCG in India to switch off for some time to pursue their interests or other work outside office. BCG will enable all consultants to switch off during those few hours in a week after discussions with clients on projects. And switching off just doesn't mean not being at work, but a clear understanding between clients and colleagues that the professionals will not respond to calls, mails and texts.

The firm is in talks with clients across practices to discuss this at the start of projects, said Alpesh Shah, senior partner and director at BCG, who leads the PTO efforts in India.




"What started off as Predictable Time Off was expanded to include Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication. The idea was to try and give some predictability about the time off for consultants and to get some visibility around client interactions. We started this with five projects two-and-a-half years ago and hope to cover 50-60 projects this year," said Shah.

Besides India, PTO will be rolled out across BCG's offices in big business markets like the US, Germany and Australia this year.

PTO would work differently for different consultants depending on their needs, interests and commitments, and break times and work styles can be discussed at the start of projects. "A Wednesday evening could be wrapped up early for someone who'd like to catch a movie or an early dinner, or someone who might want a learn a foreign language and might want to start the day early or late. The off time means no mails and calls, and consultants are expected to not give any output," he added. A team of facilitators has been meeting the partners every two weeks to summarise and share how the programme is being rolled out.

"If clients are unreasonable, then how do we try and convince them... all this gets discussed… how do we create value, how do we make a difference to the client and have a good time along the way," said Shah.

The idea for PTO took shape about 10 years ago when Grant Freeland, now the global leader of BCG's people and organisation practice, was heading the Boston office and was losing some of his key talent. "I was trying to figure out why. HBS professor Leslie Perlow came to us and asked if she could study us as there was a debate going around in HBS on work life balance. The analysis changed to how we do work," said Freeland. Freeland said merely putting in a few policies doesn't help address work life balance issues. "It's all about reducing low valued added work, getting people to collaborate in different ways," said Freeland.

HBS researchers were doing the observations, which were helpful in feedback, and now BCG has about a 100 consultants worldwide acting as facilitators. Surveys showed that not only did the work life balance improve and BCG had higher scores on parameters like 'likely to be there in 12 months', but employees' perception of value for the client increased, as did their learning per case, he added.