McKinsey – Croixstone

McKinsey & Company: Women in the Workplace 2021 Survey

Women in the Workplace is the largest comprehensive study on the state of women in corporate America, with data from 423 companies employing 12M people. Following are a few key take-aways from the study by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org.

Women are now significantly more burned out than they were last year, and increasingly more so than men. Women are, however, rising to the challenge as stronger leaders and taking on the extra work to support the wellbeing of all employees while also advancing DE&I efforts. That being said, companies are not recognizing and rewarding their efforts, and they are at risk of losing the very leaders they need right now.

While companies are embracing flexibility and not anticipating going back to pre-pandemic norms, the one thing most are missing is clear boundaries so that employees don’t have to feel like they need to be “always on” 24/7. Only 1 in 5 employees stated that they received guidelines for responding to non-urgent requests after traditional work hours. Establishing or reinforcing boundaries will go a long way in addressing burnout.

Representation by women at all levels of leadership has increased modestly, but women of color remain underrepresented, face more challenges and get less support. Allyship is critical in the workplace, and when employees have strong allies, they are more likely to have positive work experiences and less likely to be burned out and consider leaving their company.

To learn more, read the full study: Women in the Workplace 2021

The Rise of the PORTFOLIO Career

Much like COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of digital transformation, future of work experts are seeing a rise in the pervasiveness of professionals with “portfolio careers.”

Ben Legg is an engineer, serial CEO of global digital businesses, former COO of Google Europe, and former McKinsey consultant. He believes the portfolio career is a continuation of the automation of work and is here to stay.

Croixstone’s business model is built around our deep understanding of the portfolio professional. So what is a portfolio career?

A portfolio career isn’t reliant on a single source of income.

Income is derived from serving multiple clients that might include project work, consulting engagements, interim roles and/or board roles.

Unlike a “gig economy worker,” a portfolio career is thoughtfully put together and is focused on offering differentiated services in order to maximize earnings.

Learn more about portfolio career insights from Ben Legg.

Get to Know ESG!

ESG is seemingly in conversations everywhere in the business world these days. The letters ESG are short for “environmental, social and governance.”

Simply stated, ESG refers to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a company or business. These criteria help to better determine the future financial performance of companies.

KPMG believes that acting on ESG issues was important before the global pandemic and will be even more important after it. And McKinsey states, “Your business, like every business, is deeply intertwined with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns. It makes sense, therefore, that a strong ESG proposition can create value…”

Today’s business leaders need to have an understanding of ESG factors to create value for both their companies and shareholders.

Learn five ways that ESG creates value via McKinsey.

Fresh Links – July 14th

A curated list of business, career and community links.

Hiring is down: By nearly 40% in June 2020 over prior year according to LinkedIn.
Hiring youth over experience: How McKinsey changed consulting forever.
M&A challenges: Fewer than 1/3 of companies that come to market end up selling successfully.
NC jobs: These are the companies driving jobs growth in North Carolina.
Network + learn: 38 events + webinars happening across North Carolina in July.

5 Ways Work Will Change in the Future

At least 30% of the activities associated with the majority of occupations in the United States (including knowledge workers) could be automated according to a McKinsey Global Institute Report. Even though we can’t predict all the changes that will occur in the future, we do know there are things you can do to be prepared. Read 5 ways work will change in the future via Forbes.

HBR Ideacast

Pat Lynes, author of “The Interim Revolution,” isn’t the only one who sees big changes ahead for the management consulting industry. Listen to this Harvard Business School Ideacast that features Clay Christensen (the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth) and Dominic Barton (the global managing partner of McKinsey).

Listen here.

Disruption in the Consulting Industry

A couple of years ago, a team of thought leaders put their minds together to study professional services, especially consulting and law, to understand how these industries are changing and why. Then they spoke extensively with more than 50 leaders of incumbent and emerging firms, their clients, and academics and researchers who study them.

So what did these thought leaders learn from this study and the interviews?

The same forces that disrupted so many businesses, from steel to publishing, are starting to reshape the world of consulting.

Learn more here.

When McKinsey Met Uber: The Gig Economy Comes to Consulting

So is the gig economy disrupting the traditional consulting industry?

Yes, according to many experts. Back in 2013, Harvard Business Review published a fascinating article entitled “Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption” which predicted the disruption of established consultants as first smaller, then larger, clients start using alternatives to the big brands for all but “a core of critical work”.

In follow-up to this prediction, the Croixstone Consulting leadership team reviewed this week a newly-published article by Andrew Hill, Management Editor of the Financial Times, entitled “When McKinsey Met Uber: The Gig Economy Comes to Consulting” which spotlights the trend of business consultants setting out on their own as a higher-paid, and growing stratum of “gig consultants”.

We found the following factoids from the Financial Times article to be of particular interest:

31 percent of management consultants in the UK are self-employed.
20 percent of staff at the big consultancies leave every year.
59 percent of consultants made a deliberate choice to become independent (with top triggers including the desire for a career change, wanting more control over time and schedule, and wanting to work with clients in a different way).

Read the full article here (subscription may be required).