For those who don’t know, GenZ are people born between the mid to late 1990s and the early 2010s. When you read the news or browse the web you stumble upon articles like the ones below.

According to these articles, GenZ apparently wants:

These are all great aspirations that we should all strive towards. But the questions is how these requirements fit into the modern day work environment. Especially into traditional high pressure jobs that are driven by client demands, like consulting and investment banking.

Will McKinsey only focus on sustainability work in the future and stop working on all other topics? Will consultants at BCG close their laptop at 6pm sharp to enable everyone to go to their yoga class? Will Bain switch to a 4 day work week and make Friday the well-being day?

Consulting is notorious for its high pressure work environment, long hours, and work directly at the client site for at least 4 days a week. So how does the GenZ fit into this picture and how do consulting firms adjust to the requirements of GenZ?

Let’s start with the working model at consulting firms. Consulting firms had to adjusted their working model a lot in the recent years to better suit GenZ. To be honest, some of the changes were more driven by external shocks than by the specific requirements of GenZ. Especially the Covid19 pandemic led to significant changes. During that time, a 100% remote working model was the norm and consulting firms, given their flexible nature, adjusted instantly. A change that was much more difficult for clients and lead to many hiccups in their processes - but this is another topic.

And while the pandemic is over, consulting firms have kept some of the changes. Gone are the days where you had to be at the client site Monday 9am in the morning and leave with the last flight on Thursday evening. The models nowadays are diverse. The range from completely remote work with selective, let’s say bi-weekly in person meetings, to co-location with colleagues in a consulting firm office of their choice. So maybe one week in the New York office, one week home office, and then a week in the Washington office. And maybe a a couple of days at the client site in between. But the old model of course still persists if the client prefers to have the consultants on site. Nonetheless, the working model changes drastically over the past years - even if the client has the last word on it.

Next up: work life balance. And this is where it gets interesting as this is always a hot topic on recruiting events and among new joiners. Working hours largely depend on industry, client and topic of the project and general statements are difficult. But one thing is for certain: working hours have definitely not decreased in recent years. If anything, the remote Covid model even increased hours in some cases. Previously you had a natural cut-off point when heading to the airport on Thursday evening. When working from home instead of at the client site, you just keep on going until late at night, even on a Thursday. There is no more natural break when your whole team travels.  

In general, work life balance is driven by client expectations. If you pay USD 150k per week for a project, you want to see results, especially when hiring a top firm for a key strategic project. The consulting firm can’t just say

No client would ever accept that and if a consulting firm were to propose that, they’d not only lose the project, they’d be laughed out of the meeting when pitching the proposal. Decision makers at corporates usually work long hours - and that is also what they expect from their advisors.

So, working hours haven’t changed, and they won’t change much in the future. What has changed is the expectations, of fresh, GenZ consultants. In the old days, working hard-core was something you were proud of. As sad as it sounds, doing an all-nighter was worn almost like a badge of honor. GenY, which the majority of consultants (expect for Senior Partners) are a part of, didn’t glorify hard work, but they also didn’t make a fuss about it - they simply did it. Efforts were made to improve work-life balance and well-being in the past, but always with the understanding that this is a tough job, and it’ll remain so.

GenZ now is the first that is really vocal about work-life balance. They explicitly, and unapologetically demand it. And this is where cultures clash. As touched upon before, the job will always be challenging and demand hard work, so you can’t just drop the pencil at 8 PM. Project managers and especially old school partners are actually struggling with this attitude. They’d mostly say, GenZ isn’t wrong, but they do need a bit of a reality check. This isn’t a job at the government office or at some public company where everyone checks in at 8pm and leaves at 5pm. You’re sparring literally with the chief executive. That guy probably puts in a lot of intensity and potentially a 90 hour work weeks if pressing topics are up, so  consultants have to better keep up. The analogy to sports is quite fitting. If you want be a pro athlete, and you only want to train 1 hour a day while not maintaining a good diet, you won’t be in the league for very long, and there’s no one who’ll feel sorry for you. People will say hard works beats talent. And in high pressure jobs this is similar. 

When it comes to meaningful work, consulting firms actually made a lot of progress in the recent past. Many consulting firms are doing a lot of pro-bono work for charities and prioritizing topics around sustainability, increasing their competencies in that space and making sustainability core growth platforms. So there is definitely a lot of meaningful work at consulting firms. We have seen projects to increase vaccination rate in Africa to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions for companies across all industries. At the same time, a lot of the objectionable work has been discontinued in recent years. We all know about McKinsey’s involvement in the opioid epidemic (and condemn it), so they don’t advise anyone in that space anymore. The same is true for anything related to tobacco. There are now much higher guardrails and compliance procedures, and certain industries or clients are simply not served at all anymore. Besides all the classic project work, one thing that consulting firms do is that they offer a certain number of days per year to their consultants in which they can work on pro bono engagements, or pursue a charitable activity. And we’ve seen a lot of people take advantage of that, helping a charitable organization of their choice.

But with all the talk around meaning, it’s important to stress that a lot of the work in consulting is not exactly meaningful by GenZ standards. Projects on operational efficiency, corporate transformations, growth strategies, et cetera are at the center of clients agendas. As a result, it’s also the bread and butter of consulting firms. Just because sustainability is all the rage nowadays, it doesn’t mean clients ignore their operations topics, or strategic growth initiatives. In fact, it’s a simple an unfortunate reality that clients typically won’t push for something like sustainability unless they also expect a financial benefit from it. Or unless they’re forced to do something due to a regulatory requirement. This is also driven by the fact that most clients of consulting firms are listed companies and shareholders expect a positive growth trajectory and return each quarter.

So overall, meaningful work is definitely becoming more important. That being said, its still more likely that you’ll be helping a bank to cut costs than than you’ll be ending world hunger. After all, the work of consulting firms is driven by client needs and not by GenZ demands.

Finally, let’s move on to mental and physical well-being. This is actually an area consulting firms are strongly focusing on. However, one can argue how well they’re addressing this topic. You have weekly sessions on well-being and the firms also often cover well-being expenses. That could be sports classes, extra monitors to help with posture, meditation apps - the list goes on. In addition, you’ll have access to people to talk to or free coaching sessions to help you professionally and personally. But given that the work is still in a high pressure environment with long working hours, you usually don’t have time to worry about your well-being during the week, as harsh as it sounds. Our personal experience is that GenZ isn’t any less resilient than previous generations. They are more vocal in their complaints, but it’s not like we’re seeing burn-outs left and right now. More important than generational differences are simply external circumstances. Again, we’re talking about Covid 19. The main problem was that people transitioned from school into the working world. And not just anywhere, but into a high-intensity job. The fact that many young consultants still live in a small apartment and simply alternate between their bed and their desk, while not experiencing as much guidance and team spirit, was tough on a lot of people - not just GenZ. 

In conclusion, consulting didn’t really adjust specifically to the needs and demands of GenZ. The main reason is that the consulting industry is simply driven by client demand. And as long as client executives are not GenZ, there won’t be much of a change. On the contrary, it’s just the reality that fresh GenZ consultants, much like previous generations, need to adjust to the working world. Maybe it’s social media that drives unrealistic expectations, but GenZ consultants typically find themselves in a pretty rapid maturing process once they join consulting firms. And many driven GenZ consultants enjoy the rewarding work in consulting. Check out our piece why to join consulting to learn more about why consulting is still an attractive industry for ambitious graduates.

All in all, we’re not looking at a GenZ revolution here. But we are looking at an evolution. While project work only slowly moves towards more meaningful and sustainability-oriented work, there is a push for personal well-being that’s stronger than ever. And if GenZ manages to reconcile that with the reality of top-management strategy consulting, then hats off to them.