- Employees at large consulting companies such as Deloitte and PwC are burning out.
- Many have left their six-figure job due to the increasing pressure to work 90 plus hours per week.
- Insider spoke to six current and former consultants who shared what working life is like right now.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Management consultants are burning out, and some are therefore quitting their six-digit job.
The pandemic has forced consultants to adapt to a new lifestyle, one that involves no travel, no interaction on client sites, and an unspoken standard of up to 100 hours each week. In response to employees’ symptoms of burnout, such as feeling exhausted or physically or emotionally exhausted, major consultations attempt to build a more sustainable work model.
McKinsey, for example, has added benefits such as free or discount therapy. The company also has an employee resource group called Mind Matters that adds new mental health resources for employees. PwC reduced meetings by 25% and encouraged employees to cancel meetings on Friday. Boston Consulting Group used similar strategies, a spokesman said, such as reducing meetings from one hour to 50 minutes.
Insider led six current and former executives at management consulting firms such as the Big Four and one of the MBBs (consisting of McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain) to learn more about how their lives changed due to the pandemic . These consultants asked to remain anonymous for fear of endangering their careers, but their identities are known and verified by Insider.
Employees and analysts represent the most junior employees at management consulting firms, and they are usually hired directly after college or business school. These staff members work with senior associates to handle tasks such as analyzing financial statements, conducting market research, and compiling PowerPoint slides for client presentations. Projects at consulting companies are staffed per project, which means that junior employees often work with several teams and different managers throughout the year.
Only one in six people we interviewed said they had achieved a better work-life balance over the past year. Four consultants we spoke to have terminated their employment over the past three months and one has taken temporary leave. The companies did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
According to a KPMG spokesperson, consultants have worked less than 50 hours a week on average over the past year.
“During the pandemic, our people offered beneficial benefits, including improved parenting and caregiver support programs, educational support for children and mental health resources, as a result of ongoing surveys and focus groups,” the spokesman said.
Here is a selection of the employees’ comments.
Analyst comments were edited for length and clarity.
‘I resented the job I used to love’
“I will work through dinner or right after dinner until 11pm – and those were the good days. On my bad days, I worked until 2:30 am during the pandemic.”
“I had a crazy week in which I would watch 80 hours, and then I would immediately book a vacation the next week. Then I repeated the routine, and people were fine with it. But I was so tired and I just became ill for the cycle. ‘
“Bonuses were really cut off because of COVID-19. And it was not like I would be promoted again for at least another two years, because I had just been promoted. I was just wondering why I was still doing it, because there was no ‘ anything that inspires me. ‘
“Before COVID-19, I usually dealt with one client at a time. There was not much involvement at the beginning of the pandemic, so I will be manned on a few projects. Then suddenly I have to balance a few different tasks for too many people, and it all came crashing down. “
“I did not want to let my team down. I did not want to tell anyone higher up and tell them that I am tired of all the workload, because they also worked late at night. Suck it up and do it. just the job like everyone else, but it’s got to the point where I’m starting to loathe the job I used to love. ‘
“My breaking point was probably in November, when I booked more than 100 hours on a client project one week. It was my third Friday in a row that worked over two hours. I skipped a meal I had to work with. eating my friends.I had a girlfriend at my parents’ house during one of the weekends, but I could not even spend late Friday night with my family because I was so busy working.I remember I was just ridiculous. ‘
– A former senior employee at PwC who stopped during the pandemic
‘The culture was already like that before the pandemic’
‘These issues and cultural issues were absolutely so before the pandemic. I knew I would have to work more than 40 hours a week, and I was ready for it. But I did not know it would go. be so competitive, that it’s going to be so hard to get crew for projects, and that it’s still going to be my fault if there are not enough projects for everyone to be manned. ‘
“If I were to leave after March 2020, I do not think I could get a job like I did. I have heard from people I know and from my friends who work at the Big Four that it’s absolutely awful is right now because they work from home, and they work really long hours. ‘
– A former management consultant at a Big Four firm that stopped a month before the pandemic
“A team member literally left every month”
“The workload before the pandemic was pretty manageable. But once COVID-19 started, the work became just the new benchmark until 2am. People did not empathize with the fact that I was sleepless because they said there “There was nothing else I would do anyway. Then came the dismissals, which caused a lot of panic for people to keep working hard because they were not sure if they would be in the next round of dismissal.”
“I started getting migraines daily, and I had an Advil performed every morning to help with the pain. However, it did not work. My whole body started to ache, and my shoulders were quite hunched from the long working days. my stomach a few times a week. ‘
“I got a lot of gray hair. I’m only 28 years old.”
“During the Christmas break, the company encouraged people to take a week off. I was pretty burnt out at the time. When I came back, senior executives and other people in my client team said I did not have a When junior analysts time asked, would people at management meetings talk about how they do not deserve to go on leave, because in any case it is not as if they are actually going somewhere during a pandemic. ‘
“Why do I do this? Why do I do this? Why do I do this? I just questioned myself every day until I could no longer stand it and was gone. ‘
“At one point, there was literally a team member leaving every month because it was just as bad. I was very happy for the people who left the company, but it was also quite difficult because the workload they had before they left would be on the rest of us. ‘
“My team started with about 20 people before the pandemic, and we were definitely at the one figure.”
– A former strategy consultant at Deloitte who stopped during the pandemic
“I was without a doubt replaceable”
“I will wake up every day at 6am to try to break out everything I did not finish the day before.”
“If I eliminated the time I would spend commuting or traveling, my job would just never go away again. I would wake up, do my job and go to sleep knowing that there was more to come. It never ended. . “
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fatigue really wasted my time during the pandemic. All of a sudden, I could not finish in a nine-hour workday because I was just sitting through meetings all the time. It actually gives me no time to do my job, which is why I end up working late into the night. ‘
“I finally realized that my mental health should be a priority, but I do not necessarily know the steps I need to take to find a good place. My burnout, and what it has done to my mental health, is really a negative toll demanded. ‘
“If I do not meet the criteria, I will be pushed out the door, or I could be manned on projects that will make me a little miserable.”
“I never told my manager that I was burnt out because I did not want attention, negativity or any kind of unintended consequences in my way. I know communication is important, but everyone had exactly the same things to do. I want to not be a fool while everyone is working the same hours. ‘
“It’s hard to be a consultant during the pandemic because we’ve basically lost every benefit related to our job. I like to travel and like to be with different people, but I could not do that. In “Instead, I only work crazy hours. I know for sure that the practice made more money as a result of the pandemic, but nobody’s salaries went up either.”
“I was without a doubt replaceable. They don’t care.”
– A former adviser at PwC who stopped during the pandemic
“There is no sense of camaraderie”
“I was actually more burned out before the pandemic, and I know I fall into a smaller group of people at the firm who now have a better balance. I work from my apartment and feel like there are fewer eyes on me. I become no more micromanagement, and I have a little more freedom when I work from home. ‘
“I worked up to 90 hours a week about a year ago. Now my schedule is probably about 40 to 60 hours a week. I know my hours have dropped compared to other people because I was more active last year. Got easier. had projects to move to the work-from-home setup. “
“But I’m still thinking of leaving at the end of the year, because my job is ultimately less valued from a pay and team perspective.”
“I got a raise after working for almost two years, but it was just a bump of $ 3,000, even though I worked 90 hours every week for almost a year. I feel that the experience they are using ‘not worth the low salary or how hard people work.’
“There’s no sense of camaraderie at all. Now, it’s nothing more than just work. All the fun is gone.”
– An advisory partner at KPMG
“I could not afford to have a bad week because I’m being reviewed.”
“Many of the benefits you get before the pandemic, such as the cost of meals, travel and holidays with free flights – make it bearable, because the daily work is really hard. COVID-19 or not, it’s hard. I used to be hard. exhausted, but I still thought I would at least get something back. ‘
“Weekends have become a thing of the past. I worked every day for four months straight from 8am to midnight, and that included my weekends.”
‘I have found that good performance is rewarded with more work, which makes me feel like I can not earn a break. I did not want to quit my practice because I liked what I was working on – so I went on leave. for four months. ‘
“We have an ongoing feedback cycle where you are reviewed every week. I would have a feedback session with my manager every week. I think what made me burn out was just that I could not afford to feel burnt out.” a bad week, because I will be reviewed every week. ‘
“It really made me question my long-term career, because I was looking at the partners in my team who also worked the same amount of hours with me. Partners sent me an email at 5 o’clock and I could see that they were just “Like sleeping for three hours. I was just wondering why I’m working on this kind of life?”
“I felt like I was losing my head, and I was crying at work. I could not sleep, and I did not have the energy to exercise because I was just too tired. They were very supportive when I decided that I just need to take leave. ‘
– A consultant at an MBB firm who took four months’ leave due to burnout during the pandemic