Consulting Career
1.0 Contextualization
A consultant can provide the expertise that can help to make the difference between a winning changes and a loser (Osborn 2002).. The said aspect can help short-term and middle-term changes that demands specialized skills to save money in the long run by bringing in an outside consultants that have the skills that the present staff do not have. The process starts by finding the expertise and then screens the candidates, the biggest challenge focuses on the process of successfully integrate a consultant into your team. Based on the gathered information, the author wishes to work for Capfor (www.Capfor.com). This firm is a Human resource consulting firm that provides helps and assistance on human resources problems and issues in the international market. Accordingly, the author finds this as consulting institutions that can enable the author to improve the consulting skills. Since, the author would like to be involved in human resource management issues and problems, the author found this firm an effective firm to enhance my potentials. This firm is known in the consulting firms and they are already popular in international market.
2. Building consulting competencies
This part of the paper composes of the three main aspects. The first one is about the turbulences in the consulting firms and how these can influence the career of a consultant. It consists of the actual career transition and changes as well as the consultancy cycle.
The evaluation of the author’s consulting skills and global competencies and improvement of the vital competencies that is needed as consultant based on the author’s perception. Secondly, this part will also consider the final competency to be consider the branding of the career of the consultant.
2.1 Turbulences in the consulting firms and effect on the consultant’s career & actual career transition cycle
In the consulting firms, turbulences were primarily established by the restructured approach in larger firms. There was a need for the firms to become effective and efficient because of the general enhancement of the global and business environment to be more profitable and gain competitive advantage (Littler 1997).
The new type of psychological contract is defined by greater autonomy between the employee and the firm and is more focused on short term as well as circumstantial tasks. In this regard, the employment will stay as long as value can be provided to the industry (Hiltrop 1995). The consultants should know about this issue to be able to cope and focus on their competencies and to stay attractive in the global market. As a consultant, this can be attained by the consideration of the career mobility, flexibility and continuous leaning and enhancement as well as the stable contribution of added development (Marchant 1999). In this regard, it can be said that the author needs to evaluate the performance regularly in terms of the four kinds of expectations of the market. The author is still studying and are currently starting on the consulting career and do not have enough experience, hence the author is not completely knowledgeable in the transition cycle.
Accordingly, the first step for a career cycle is preparation that illustrates the readiness of an individual for changes. The second one is about the emotional aspects, specifically for the second encounter. The third period is adjustment, that aims on recognizing misfit and follows to personal transitions or innovation and the last phase is stabilization that consists settling with the current transition cycle and is utilized as preparation for the next transition cycle.
In this regard, the author will adhere to the management consulting and attempt to use the practical experience from work experiences in the HR management and knowledge of her consulting study as mainly general skills. The special Human resources solution from consulting firm can be characterized as Tshaped – that adheres to specialization and generally practical as well as theoretical knowledge. It can be said that with inadequate experiences, there is a need for improvement in special skills to meet client requirements. Herein, specialist and generalist skills can be considered that are essential for becoming flexible and adhere to the needs of the firm and the future clients (Czerniawska 2002). With the continuous changes in the marketplace, the author considered the adjustment aspect as the transition cycle.
2.2 Consulting Skills and Global Competencies
Accordingly, there are various types of criterion that clients are looking for an effective consultant. Studies have shown that quantitative benefit was the main priority in Mauritius for clients. This was followed by specialized know- how, human resource management and the qualitative profit. The instruments and methods introduction was considered less interesting for clients. In a study by Czerniawska & Toppin (2005), they have found that consultants should be proud consultants, which starts from being successful in delivering best value to their clients. It is said that the following pinnacles are essential and vital in today’s consulting firms: human resource management, human resource enhancement teamwork, interpersonal relationships, specialist knowledge and transfer as well as enhancement in the clients place, performance measurement, recruitment and training production, motivation and allocation of resources in a sensible and practical manner. Essential and vital decision criterion for the agreement to consulting contexts are specialized and solution competences, consultants’ personality and quality, the efficiency of the firm and others.
Figure 1 – The emerging segmentation of the consulting market (Source: Czerniawska 2002, p. 35) Capfor characterizes itself as ‘niche firm’ which focused on the consultancy needs of specific firms and as an ‘enabling firm’ whose consultancy offer client management with a platform of knowledge as well as pertinent recommendations on that to make strategic decisions (Beswick 2006). For Capfor the special knowledge of specific firms, such as multinational corporations, is very essential and vital. Generally, consultant’s knowledge can be divided into consulting skills as well as global competences in wider aspects. .
In table A1 global competences and the according actions for enhancement of these capabilities are listed. To the six competences provided, managing the organizational adaptability, complexity, competitive process, multicultural teams, uncertainty, personal and organizational learning from Rhinesmith (1993), the authors have added global risk and market entrance management. These competences are essential and vital for Capfor because the consultancy is operating in international market. The author needs to exercise and master all eight global competences to be able to become theoretically knowledgeable and to improve the consulting craft/
Table A2 in appendix illustrates the technical skills from the author as well as the relevance to the Capfor group. Human resource management is very essential and vital for Capfor because they are core competences of the firm. The author has little knowledge with in these aspects. Learning by doing will enable the author to become more confident in this job.
The author could utilize some theoretical knowledge as well as some practical experience in human resource management and interpersonal skills. The author has little knowledge with human resource management and processes (Block 1999). For Capfor, human resource management is very important because the recruitment of new employees in the clients’ places is not part of the tasks from Capfor. Other aspects in this area, can take part in a course of human resource management to enable the author become knowledgeable in this context. The author needs to evaluate the various courses to find out the most suitable and recognized specialization in this area.
In table A3 the interpersonal skills are also listed. Interpersonal skills are noted as high and medium essential for Capfor and the author has little knowledge with it. In order to gain interpersonal skills, active listening is an important skill of the author, support and counseling, constructive confrontation, assertiveness, and managing stress are good interpersonal skills that the author has experienced as part of the courses and while intervening with consulting practices. The author has less experience with managing teamwork process (Block 1999).
Analysis shows that the author requires more practice for being more sensitized about the interpersonal, technical and more importantly consultancy skills. Working for Capfor will be a good opportunity to enhance these skills. The consultancy skills in the various stages as well as their values to Capfor are illustrated. Contracting skills including negotiating client demands, and others as well as skills in discovery stage are medium essential and vital for Capfor because its clients often already know what they need. On one hand, skills in feedback and skills in decision stage are also valuable for clients from Capfor.
Based on evaluation, the author has good consultancy skills but the author will be enhanced after getting to know the clients from Capfor better and with more experiences and practice (Block 1999).
2.3 Strengths in Client’s Perception
Human resource management, strategic management, changes management, research management and are strengths of the author and the firm Capfor. Human resource management and strategic management generation are key services from Capfor and the company is known for being interesting for further enhancement for the author.
Capfor wants to generate a brand in human resource management, and strategic management consulting in the multinational corporations. All employees must also have the strengths from the firm and their main competencies. Such brands need to be underlined since the clients from Capfor require consultancy service mostly in these contexts. The strategic management and marketing strategy need to be linked to the business approaches (Greiner & Poulfelt 2005). Capfor presents its main specialization in human resource management, marketing and strategic management consulting on their homepage and also in client conversations. Herein, the branding must be evaluated and monitored regularly to keep the established branding priorities as well as coordinate the excellent direction. It is recommended that new consulting services should be considered and enhances the existing brand strategy. This should be promoted at the homepage of the company and during conversations with clients and partners (Weiss 2002).
3. Managing the consulting process
Generating client readiness, determining and dealing with resistance as well as contracting meetings are three problems and issues that must be considered in the consulting process. They are characterized in this part during the four consulting stage contact and research, enhancement of the strategic management strategy, considering feedback to the success as well as the whole program which include adjustments in this time. After the first contact with the client the readiness of the client must be evaluated and its motivation in the new development, e. g. realization of a new human resource management strategy, should be considered. The importance of such changes for the client can be noted by knowing who will be involved in the specific changes and the role as well as responsibilities that they should consider. Moreover, the client expectation of the result of the changes and why the client decided for these changes at this time need to be evaluated. The level of knowledge regarding such changes and how well previous context proceeded and what problems as well as issues need to be noted about the new changes are also essential and vital to discover (Erwee 2006).
Resistance is also present during the changes if the work with various interest groups is needed, specifically if emotions are very high. Resistance indicators include passive behavior of employees, providing unstructured information, timing and schedule issues or measuring methods before accepting the proposal. There are various ways on solving these issues and these should also be tackled during consultation process. It is a normal reaction of people to changes, only the reasons in the specific conditions should be analyzed to find the most appropriate solution/ (Erwee 2006). Accordingly, change resistance can occur during all stages but mainly in the beginning when the client does not really know what to do and trust need to be generated.
Capfor mostly conducts international human resource management consulting- this means most of the time Capfor does not meet the client face to face. There are two approaches for the initial contact with the client, for instance, through another client or as a result of their internet or online advertisements or recommendation from other clients. The clients’ problem will be evaluated and assessed and information about the client is evaluated. Then the problem and issues will be structured and a procedure program will be generated.
To provide the proposal for carrying out the changes, e. g. the strategic management plan contract meetings with the strategic management manager can take place by teleconferencing or client visits. The meeting may start with the introduction of its purpose/objective and duration and the roles of the employees involved. Then the presentation starts and followed by discussion of other issues. The essential factors need to be considered to make the changes successful and what the consultant can contribute and there are limits. After negotiation, mutual expectations of the client and the consultant an agreement should be set. Contract meetings or agreements about the continuation of changes can be required after period was set and for progress reevaluation progress (Erwee 2006).
However a review about each contract meeting should also be considered by the consultant. After getting the deal with the enhancement of a new strategic management strategy, Capfor can also seen a questionnaire with all questions to client, and if needed they also send a survey to the main client. The answers will be used as a basis for decision making about the ideal strategic management strategy for the client. The strategic management plan with actions as well as consequences and an implementation plan will be generated and sent to the client for discussions/workshops comfort of the client. If all the needs of the client are considered, the decision for the implementation of the strategic management strategy is given and the operative realization can being In this stage, regular control of progress should be considered by reevaluations and inputs from staffs of the client, action plans will be adjusted in accordance with implementation support and inclusive motivation programs will be given.
Before the changes are implemented for the consultant, the client and the consultant will have the time to talk about the success of the changes and the client evaluates the performance and the benefits of the new program for the firm. The consultant ‘s role in this stage is to do their own review and send the invoice to the client and contact the client again once or twice to get feedback about the change over a longer time. The duration of the changes still depends on various client situations but generally this takes three to six months.
4. International Human resource management
The analysis of management across culture is the basis for a good global consulting and international human resource management. Though, global societies and international consulting are becoming similar in different manners, there are still cultural differences and diversities that are barriers to cooperation with national firms (Greiner & Poulfelt 2005; Czerniawska 1999). The main goal is to combine diverse cultural values without damaging their distinctiveness and uniqueness (Erwee 2006). Capfor works globally in the marketplace. The Mauritian office has business contacts with the neighboring countries which have similarities with their culture and attitude but they are nations with their own history, norms, beliefs, customers and language. To be able to cope with these, Capfor utilizes the contractor who is appropriate to the national culture of the client and can fulfill the needs of the client. The author will evaluate if other partners from neighboring countries show differences to the Mauritian people and try to find out if they are more individualists or collectivists. Trivadis (2002) notes that national cultures have differences/
Cultures which include the beliefs, values, norms, and language as well as the individual behavior have an impact on the organizational behavior and the global competencies of the firm to adjust with their clients. The objective of Capfor is to communicate with all essential and vital clients and to be hired and accepted by them because of their excellence and professionalism and the high quality of work. Their behavior is also important for the clients to choose them. It is important to define and identify the different roles and responsibilities of the consultant with accordance to the decisions of the company. It is important to focus on the limitations and span of the responsibilities of the consultants due to the fact that it will be hard for the developer to magically fit everything that is broken or build everything that the organization needed. That is why it is important to focus on open and smooth communication process in order to make sure that all processes and decisions of the Capfor is based on the objectives, ethics and values of the company.
Consultants can help to draw on his or her experience to transfer information and then insight from one organizational setting to another, and then he can often to bring to the smaller organization analytical skills that are too expensive to develop and maintain the system. In addition to that, a single consultant mostly possesses the complete range of insights and skills that are needed to examine the total adaptive characteristics of an organization. That is why it is important that the top management to understand the overall adaptive process that it does not fragment outside advice by process of implementing recommendations in one area without the tying the said changes into related parts of the organizational system (Miles & Snow 2003, p. 158).
Analysis shows that turbulences in the consulting firms have specific effects on the career of a consultant. The consulting skills, competencies as well as branding from the author were compared with that of the company (Capfor) and the needs of their target clients’ needs. Furthermore, it also evaluated that competences should be generated for maintaining the employability of the author to be a consultant in the company. Consulting process issues as well as the cross cultural management especially were analyzed. In this regard, this course has been able to provide good analysis for competences in consulting and determine consulting gaps which need to be trained in becoming an effective consultant. It gave great information in consulting and motivated the author has a successful future in consulting firms.
References:
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