Early Career Development of Management Consultants, opportunities for increasing Graduate retention in the UK market: The Case of a UK Consulting Firm

Purpose: The global impact of Covid-19 has resulted in significant disturbance to the world of work with 18% of the workforce projected to seek employment away from their current employer (PwC, 2022). The majority of new graduates entering the workforce as Consultants are made up from Generation Z, possessing a range of ‘new’ values including their desire for alternative employment in line with their social and economic aspirations.

This paper explores Generation Z within a UK Consulting organisation to understand the factors that motivates individuals to seek alternative employment and determines whether the introduction of a role-specific technical training and resourcing strategy could be utilised to reduce attrition of Associates when completing their respective graduate programme.

Methodology: An anonymised survey incorporating quantitative and qualitative questions was issued to a participant pool of 427 graduate consultants, focused on those individuals engaged on the organisation’s graduate scheme. Data was received from 47 consultants representing a response rate of 11% which impacted on the level of non-response bias on the overall findings of the study.

Findings: 40% of graduate-level Consultants that indicated their intention to leave within the next 12-18 months, citing salary as the main reason, followed by promotion and progression. Although the combination of all intrinsic factors outweighed the sole extrinsic element, the identification of salary clearly supports the need for further research into this group as it currently does not assimilate with historical theory. When analysing whether location was a contributing factor to the decision to leave, the research demonstrated that individuals from areas associated with high deprivation, or those where the salary was higher than the regional cost of living were less likely to seek alternative employment.

Practical Implications: As a result of the increased cost of living across the UK, employees may not choose to leave the organisation completely but relocate to another regional office where the base salary is higher. This reduces the skill profiles of certain regional offices, decreasing profit margin for projects and increasing the costs associated with the claiming of expenses due to misalignment of skills across local teams.