Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services Succeed as Employees Thrive

New Research from Great Place to Work® finds high-trust cultures reap business benefits
San Francisco – The consulting and professional services industry is shifting its focus to clients' talent management challenges. The change spotlights workplace cultures within consulting firms themselves. Consulting and professional services companies with the best workplaces enjoy business advantages over their peers, specifically faster growth and more committed, productive employees. This culture-competitive edge connection is a key finding as Great Place to Work® and Fortune Magazine announce the 20 Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services for 2016.

Topping the list is engineering services provider Kimley-Horn and Associates. Other companies to make the ranking include human resources consulting firm Mammoth HR, management consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group and accounting and advisory firm Plante & Moran.

"The professional services field is changing as clients realize the people side of the business is the most important," says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work®. "This puts a premium on great cultures at consulting firms themselves. And the best workplaces in the field are seeing a payoff in terms of business results."

The 20 Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services stand out from their peers for work environments that are particularly free of favoritism, well-managed, democratic and fair when it comes to profit sharing and pay, according to research by Great Place to Work®. And these leading employers get a "return" for their great cultures. The list winners—who outperformed roughly 70 industry peers in the ranking--enjoy higher levels of cooperation, loyalty and employee willingness to go the extra mile. The Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services also expanded their employee headcount by about 12 percent in the past year, roughly four times faster than industry peers.

The new ranking is based on anonymous responses to the Trust Index©, Great Place to Work®'s employee assessment survey. The survey measures levels of trust, pride and camaraderie employees experience in their workplace. The Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services ranking considered a total of nearly 90 companies in the field that are Certified as Great Workplaces by Great Place to Work®.

Research into these companies led to some striking findings related to retention of employees in the industry. When employees feel they receive a fair share of profits, they are about twice as likely to say they want to remain at their company "for a long time." But a sense of purpose at work and positive relationships with colleagues and bosses act as even stronger reasons for people to stay. Employees who agree that "people care about each other here" are more than six times more likely to want to stay at their firm a long time. And staffers who feel pride in what they accomplish are a whopping 12.7 times more likely to stay put long term.

The Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services excel at retaining and motivating their people. Our research found:

• • Voluntary turnover is much lower than industry peers at about half of the 31 percent for the professional services sector overall.
• • Ninety-seven percent employees say their colleagues "are willing to give extra to get the job done," compared to roughly 90 percent at peer companies in the study.

Employees at the best workplaces also report higher levels of collaboration—an increasingly important factor for innovation and productivity.

"The company's core purpose is to 'provide an environment for our people to flourish,' which is clearly visible in the way the organization is structured," says an employee at Kimley-Horn. "There is an attitude of sharing and caring that fosters teamwork and collaboration, as people and resources can be reallocated to help with needs."

The Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services is one of a series of rankings by Great Place to Work® and Fortune based upon employee survey feedback from Great Place to Work®-certified organizations.

About The Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services

The Best Workplaces in Consulting & Professional Services list is a "best of the great" ranking. The winners come from the universe of Great Place to Work®-Certified great workplaces. Nearly 600 companies are currently certified and have published workplace reviews, reflecting the opinions of over 250,000 employees who were randomly selected to complete Great Place to Work®'s Trust Index© employee survey. Almost 30,000 employees in the Consulting & Professional Services sector were surveyed about how frequently they experience the behaviors that create a great workplace. Results from the survey have a 95 percent confidence level and a margin of error of five percent or less. The total score for each company is based entirely upon this employee feedback. The 20 companies with the highest employee ratings were selected for the list.

About Great Place to Work®

Great Place to Work® is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, including Best Workplaces lists and workplace reviews, Great Place to Work® provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures. In the United States, Great Place to Work® produces the annual Fortune "100 Best Companies to Work For®" and a series of Great Place to Work® Best Workplaces lists, including lists for Millennials, Women, Diversity, Small and Medium Companies and over a half dozen different industries.

Follow Great Place to Work® online at www.greatplacetowork.com and on Twitter at @GPTW_US.

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Contact: Ann Nadeau, Chief Marketing Officer, Great Place to Work®
Phone: (+1) 415 298 5237
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