To Bushy Eyebrow Partner - I have noticed time and again that you encourage people on this forum to consider their working hours while choosing jobs.How many hours do you expect your guys to put in in what I presume is your boutique firm (I am currently at a global consulting behemoth, looking to move to smaller place, help family planning etc)Do boutique firms value people coming out of big4, Accenture, CapGem e.t.c

Hello London consultant, you are right, hours of work are so important to one's sanity. I've worked in places before where I routineky had to do 80 hours a week minimum and frankly no amount of money would ever make me go back to doing that again except as a very short term thing to pay the bills if I got desperate.From my own team my primary concern is whether they get the work done or not. The workloads are realistic and in any event my expectation is that they adjust the quantity of output to match the time available. I tend to prefer working with people who work hard and are focused while they are working, rather than the type that waste time going around in circles and having meetings that they know are pointless then having to catch up in the evenings or at the weekends.Realistically, I expect people to be working 9.00am to 6.00pm. Anything more than that and you get diminishing returns. Some of the managers might stay in the office until 8.00pm if they have a lot on - but that would only happen twice a week or so and certainly wouldn't be expected of them. The main thing is that people get things finished on time. One thing that irritates me about this industry is the amount of time wasted by people who don't focus on the task at hand... Holding unnecessary meetings with clients or blowing the budget on revisions of documents is a fast way to sink a firm of consultants...

Also just to say that yes I for one very much value people with big 4, Accenture, cap gem experience. From that background they hopefully understand that time = money and therefore spend it wisely!

Also, I know that those hours are low by industry standards but it's amazing what you can achieve in a given time if you out your mind to it and focus on the task at hand. Company culture and politics has a lot to do with it - when people are pleased about the work they're doing, and when they're working for people who know what they're doing, they don't feel the need to be hanging around the coffee machine or sending emails at 3am.

great insight as always, thank you!Anybody else want to pitch in to the discussion?

BEP, do you think that your staff would give you the same answer as you have?The reason I ask this is that I've been asked previously how I manage "work/life integration" and I felt that I couldn't answer it truthfully. I gave some examples like: "I make my leadership aware of two commitments I have in the weekday evenings and I make sure I attend them""I leverage our delivery centres from all over the world to take advantage of the time difference - i.e. I can email a request to India at 6pm knowing they have 5 hours of working time before I get in at 9am" where I really wanted to say:"Until SMs/partners stop coming to me at 6pm and giving me "urgent" work that needs doing before 9am the next day there is no such thing"or "Until the SMs/partners actually implement some basic project management basics on the programmes they run - i.e. they know what activities their team need to do today, tomorrow and next week so that team members can effectively manage their time" or "If I reject unreasonable work requests, I know it will count negatively towards me at performance feedback times - and because of the reasons above the request from the SM/partner is usually because of their own poor time management skills and they routinely expect me to save their backside, often without acknowledging that they should have given more notice"So, I work ridiculous hours for an ever decreasing hourly wage.

Yes, I know for certain that they would give the same answer I've given.I take a very firm line on the work-life balance thing. And by balance, I mean it in the dictionary sense, not the "city of london doublespeak" sense of "balance = 100% of time spent at work".Here are some of the things I make clear:1. During work hours, people have to work hard. No time-wasting, dithering, indecisiveness or pretending to be busy.2. Outside of work hours, you're FREE. Work isn't going to call or email you. Nor are we going to "invite" (read: "coerce") you into garbage like Friday night team socials.3. We recognise that clients have deadlines and try to put us under urgent pressure. We cannot live in a permanent state of responding to urgent deadlines. So, even though a client might be getting all worked up about a deadline, we don't share their grief. We finish at 6.30pm at the latest. If a client wants the job done overnight, then they can look for some other mug to do that for them.4. At 6.30pm, we really do finish work. As in, the office will be empty with the lights turned off. But what if we haven't done the work, I hear you ask? Then we tell the client it's going to be with them later than anticipated. That's just life.5. Regarding workload, we trim our deliverables to fit the time available. If someone wants you to do something for them by 11am and they ask you at 3pm the following day, they get 5 hours worth of output from us. They're not going to get a 50-page deck put together for them in 5 hours. Or, they might, but the quality will be poor. We're not miracle workers.6. During the day, people have to be flexible. If I or one of the managers asks one of the juniors to do something straight away, I/they mean it. They need to get to it and they need to get to it fast. But we also understand that if that means they have to drop something else, then we'll be making them miss a deadline or something. We're fine with that and we'll support each other - we don't do "blame" here.Now, many of you may feel that this is a terrible attitude and completely lacks any sense of client focus. I understand that. However, 40 years in this game has shown me that clients will abuse you if you let them. We do a great job for a fair fee. We do not however sacrifice our juniors by letting clients kill them via all-nighters. Nor do we live in a permanent state of panic: what is "major change" to our clients is "business as usual" to us. We do awesome work and our clients mostly love us - but we're not skivvys and anybody that thinks they can put our staff through the mill is sadly mistaken. If a firm lets clients abuse its staff, then they will. But once a client learns that there is a protocol, then they learn to respect that. If you're surrounded by people who give you tasks at 5pm and expect it done by the following morning, then you're working in a toxic environment. The question is - how much do you value your sanity and free time? Some people will gladly give up 5 evenings a week for an extra £20K on their salary. I for one won't.

Can I come and work for you? Until an Accenture, Deloitte, whoever starts enforcing sensible rules like you have then work/life balance will always be a myth.

This is all really great stuff.- If people are willing to, perhaps can you give some insight into the hours you usually put in (comment on how many you do when things are busy versus when things are a bit more relaxed)... and where you are based (that is, geographical location, no need to name your company unless you want).- how regular are overnighters or till midnight work?- how does your partner feel about this?- how much of this is self-inflicted versus inflicted by a sadistic supervisor?- how long are you willing to keep this up, and what are your plans to reduce them? (quite likely, move somewhere else)

[quote]Yes, I know for certain that they would give the same answer I've given.I take a very firm line on the work-life balance thing. And by balance, I mean it in the dictionary sense, not the "city of london doublespeak" sense of "balance = 100% of time spent at work".Here are some of the things I make clear:1. During work hours, people have to work hard. No time-wasting, dithering, indecisiveness or pretending to be busy.2. Outside of work hours, you're FREE. Work isn't going to call or email you. Nor are we going to "invite" (read: "coerce") you into garbage like Friday night team socials.3. We recognise that clients have deadlines and try to put us under urgent pressure. We cannot live in a permanent state of responding to urgent deadlines. So, even though a client might be getting all worked up about a deadline, we don't share their grief. We finish at 6.30pm at the latest. If a client wants the job done overnight, then they can look for some other mug to do that for them.4. At 6.30pm, we really do finish work. As in, the office will be empty with the lights turned off. But what if we haven't done the work, I hear you ask? Then we tell the client it's going to be with them later than anticipated. That's just life.5. Regarding workload, we trim our deliverables to fit the time available. If someone wants you to do something for them by 11am and they ask you at 3pm the following day, they get 5 hours worth of output from us. They're not going to get a 50-page deck put together for them in 5 hours. Or, they might, but the quality will be poor. We're not miracle workers.6. During the day, people have to be flexible. If I or one of the managers asks one of the juniors to do something straight away, I/they mean it. They need to get to it and they need to get to it fast. But we also understand that if that means they have to drop something else, then we'll be making them miss a deadline or something. We're fine with that and we'll support each other - we don't do "blame" here.Now, many of you may feel that this is a terrible attitude and completely lacks any sense of client focus. I understand that. However, 40 years in this game has shown me that clients will abuse you if you let them. We do a great job for a fair fee. We do not however sacrifice our juniors by letting clients kill them via all-nighters. Nor do we live in a permanent state of panic: what is "major change" to our clients is "business as usual" to us. We do awesome work and our clients mostly love us - but we're not skivvys and anybody that thinks they can put our staff through the mill is sadly mistaken. If a firm lets clients abuse its staff, then they will. But once a client learns that there is a protocol, then they learn to respect that. If you're surrounded by people who give you tasks at 5pm and expect it done by the following morning, then you're working in a toxic environment. The question is - how much do you value your sanity and free time? Some people will gladly give up 5 evenings a week for an extra £20K on their salary. I for one won't.[/quote]I have to say I always love your input on things Bushy. I've often found the recruitment industry to be completely inefficient. I've never understood why people are working until 9 or 10pm at night in our industry. It just screams of inefficiency.

[quote]Yes, I know for certain that they would give the same answer I've given.I take a very firm line on the work-life balance thing. And by balance, I mean it in the dictionary sense, not the "city of london doublespeak" sense of "balance = 100% of time spent at work".Here are some of the things I make clear:1. During work hours, people have to work hard. No time-wasting, dithering, indecisiveness or pretending to be busy.2. Outside of work hours, you're FREE. Work isn't going to call or email you. Nor are we going to "invite" (read: "coerce") you into garbage like Friday night team socials.3. We recognise that clients have deadlines and try to put us under urgent pressure. We cannot live in a permanent state of responding to urgent deadlines. So, even though a client might be getting all worked up about a deadline, we don't share their grief. We finish at 6.30pm at the latest. If a client wants the job done overnight, then they can look for some other mug to do that for them.4. At 6.30pm, we really do finish work. As in, the office will be empty with the lights turned off. But what if we haven't done the work, I hear you ask? Then we tell the client it's going to be with them later than anticipated. That's just life.5. Regarding workload, we trim our deliverables to fit the time available. If someone wants you to do something for them by 11am and they ask you at 3pm the following day, they get 5 hours worth of output from us. They're not going to get a 50-page deck put together for them in 5 hours. Or, they might, but the quality will be poor. We're not miracle workers.6. During the day, people have to be flexible. If I or one of the managers asks one of the juniors to do something straight away, I/they mean it. They need to get to it and they need to get to it fast. But we also understand that if that means they have to drop something else, then we'll be making them miss a deadline or something. We're fine with that and we'll support each other - we don't do "blame" here.Now, many of you may feel that this is a terrible attitude and completely lacks any sense of client focus. I understand that. However, 40 years in this game has shown me that clients will abuse you if you let them. We do a great job for a fair fee. We do not however sacrifice our juniors by letting clients kill them via all-nighters. Nor do we live in a permanent state of panic: what is "major change" to our clients is "business as usual" to us. We do awesome work and our clients mostly love us - but we're not skivvys and anybody that thinks they can put our staff through the mill is sadly mistaken. If a firm lets clients abuse its staff, then they will. But once a client learns that there is a protocol, then they learn to respect that. If you're surrounded by people who give you tasks at 5pm and expect it done by the following morning, then you're working in a toxic environment. The question is - how much do you value your sanity and free time? Some people will gladly give up 5 evenings a week for an extra £20K on their salary. I for one won't.[/quote]I found this particularly refreshing.I have to say, I work with a lot of consultants on a daily basis (from strategy houses, The Big 6 and even other boutiques) who are particularly keen to change roles to an organisation that *genuinely* priorities work/life balance. How active are you in promoting this message (i.e. via company literature) to prospective candidates, pre the interview process?

I think the world has moved on from counting hours to delivering outcomes. If my team can deliver what I need from them, which we agree up-front, then I don't really care if they work 10 hours in the office or 50. Just send me a good quality deliverable at the agreed time.

[quote]I think the world has moved on from counting hours to delivering outcomes. If my team can deliver what I need from them, which we agree up-front, then I don't really care if they work 10 hours in the office or 50. Just send me a good quality deliverable at the agreed time.[/quote]Let's keep it at "part of the world" has moved from counting hours to delivering outcomes ;)I still regularly see other examples in consulting. Not necessarily counting hours but just filling everyone's plate with so much work that in the end people will have 60+ working hours per week. As said above, with seriously diminishing returns if you continue doing that for weeks or months.Those are often the same people who are totally unstructured, don't plan ahead whatsoever, waste a gigantic amount of time during the day, then use their own late evenings as well as those of their colleagues to compensate for that.

BEP,Very refreshing and good to hear.Should definitely be part of your update to potential candidates, I reckon you would get some very high calibre guys interested. The writing felt genuine and with a few changes, should and could be used to explain one of your USPs for new entries.

With regard to what BEP says, I think the "work until you drop" part is generally overestimated in most Big4ish environments.Yes, you can be unlucky and do long hours systematically, but it's the consequence of somebody else not doing/having done their job properly elsewhere. That somebody could be anybody from your peers to the super mega partner who let the client have a massive upper hand in the engagement process.What I used to find more subtle and dangerous is all the "Industry X breakfast", "Service Y drinks", "Practice Development for Unit Z", "Weekly pi$$ up" crap.I can understand there is genuinely a lot to be done at work so people aren't always staying late for the sake of face time with the client. But all that extra stuff that isn't mandatory yet WILL make a huge difference in terms of exposure, career progression etc etc is absolutely annoying and ends up in seriously useless escalation of commitment dynamics.The whole "work hard play hard" attitude is psychotic and the result of peer pressure. I like my job, therefore working hard may not be a problem. But once we're done for the day, let me go home so I can rest and freaking do it again tomorrow instead of being a fucking zombie by Wednesday if not Tuesday.Finally: this thread is nice but I don't think anyone needs to be overly sympathetic with anyone on the topic. I believe nobody's on doctor's orders to work a demanding City job. Again, if you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't be doing it anyway. If you never built anything in your life outside what was then school and what is now work, if you are not burning to do ALSO something else with your days and weeks, then you might as well work long hours. It's only marginally worse than going home earlish to a ready-made dinner and to watch Glee or any other mediocrity.

I find this completely depends on the project. Deals related projects mean burning the midnight oil and missing weekends. Most other things don't, and as somebody in the mid range of pay grades if you're upfront with management they'll never be unreasonable, as long as you aren't. Also clients seem to demand fixed fees more these days, which means partners seem less concerned about forcing people to work for longer. If anything it'll make their negotiating skills look crap because they end up writing off a load of unbilled WIP and having terrible recovery (or with hundreds of 'BD' hours booked to that client, i.e. overtime). I work for a Big 4 btw.

I think 80 hours a week minimum and frankly amount of moneygreat post as always, thank you!Anybody else want to pitch in to the discussion?