Consulting firms see bright future
The remote-working trend in the consulting sector emerged long before the coronavirus pandemic.
That familiarity with different workplace models has proved crucial in the past year for firms that specialize in professional and business services. While their industry has not escaped the pervasive job losses unleashed by the global public health crisis, their ability to provide auditing, tax services and other consulting has experienced much less disruption than industries that require inperson interaction.
Now, a year into the pandemic, those firms are taking on ambitious projects and looking to hire.
“2020 created a whole new way of working for our own teams and our clients,” Allan Colaco, the Stamford managing partner for KPMG — one of the “Big Four” professional-services firms — said in an interview. “We’ve tried to make the best out of the situation and the hand we’ve been dealt.”
A year of change
COVID-19’s spread in early 2020 sparked a mass migration of officebased jobs to work-from-home setups. But for professional-services firms, the switch did not come as a shock. Their business models had long depended on employees spending much of their time working in other locations, including at clients’ sites.
“At EY, we have long encouraged flexible working for our people,” said Bud McDonald, Stamford managing partner for EY, another of the Big Four firms. “So when the pandemic hit, we had the tools in place to rapidly shift to remote work and continue providing exceptional service for our clients.”
In the following months, clients’ needs quickly evolved.
“Companies were looking to push their ESG (environmental, social and governance) initiatives — looking at different business models to increase their focus on sustainability, looking at their supply chains and where they made investments from a social standpoint,” Colaco said. “We had a lot of positive interactions and projects with clients in those spaces.”
Officials at Deloitte, another of the Big Four firms, have also seen robust demand despite the economic downturn.
“This year, our team is focused on helping businesses, government and nonprofit organizations on their recovery journeys,” said Heather Ziegler, Deloitte’s Stamford managing partner. “For example, we see opportunity to help organizations become more agile and efficient by leveraging cloud and artificial-intelligence technologies to increase productivity enhance their digital platforms. We advise clients on managing risk and securing their operations, including — but not limited to — cyber security and supply chain. And we help them navigate crisis to emerge stronger and more resilient, all while re-imagining the future of work.”
At the same time, executives said that they have worked to maintain a cohesive and inclusive work culture despite the lack of in-person interaction. Colaco, who was appointed Stamford managing partner in February 2020, last summer held virtual “meet-andand
greets” with all of KPMG’s approximately 350 Stamford-based employees.
“We had to be a little bit more intentional and deliberate about nurturing that culture and supporting our people, with simple things like reaching out and asking them what they needed and how they were doing,” Colaco said. “Getting through every single (meet-and-greet) was certainly an exhausting process, but it was one that I felt I had to do because I hadn’t had that chance to do it in person.”
Major employers in Connecticut
Between January 2020 and January 2021, professional and business services lost 16,500 jobs in the state, or 7.5 percent of its total, according to data from the state Department of Labor. The decline mirrored the 7.5 percent decrease in Connecticut’s total workforce during the same period, with employment falling in every major industry.
“The main reason clearly is COVID-19,” said David Lewis, founder and CEO of Norwalk-based HR services firm Operations Inc. “The shutdown of offices, the movement to remote work, the slowdown in business activity overall — all are factors that have impacted the markets. Frankly, I am encouraged by this number as I would have expected it to be far worse.”
Despite those job losses, professional services still employed about 203,000 statewide in January. The total ranked third-highest among private-sector fields in Connecticut, after education and health services and trade, transportation and utilities.
KPMG employs about 525 statewide, compared with approximately 600 for EY and 1,400 for Deloitte.
A message left for PwC, the other Big Four company, was not returned.
Cementing their commitment to the state, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC each qualified during then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration for multimilliondollar state subsidies tied to targets for retaining and adding jobs.
“I do think a number of the incentive programs were effective in helping our professional-services companies stay and grow in Connecticut,” said state Rep. Caroline Simmons, D-Stamford, who is cochairwoman of the state legislature’s Commerce Committee. “But we must do more to help support these businesses who have suffered job losses amid this recession and do everything we can do to keep them in Stamford.”
Simmons is challenging Stamford Mayor David Martin for the Democratic nomination for mayor in this year’s municipal election. Martin was not immediately available to comment.
Each of the Big Four firms also maintains offices in Hartford — with work connected to the state legislature and state agencies driving demand there.
While they have maintained large workforces in the state, the likes of Deloitte, EY and KPMG will not be rushing back to their offices in the coming months. They all plan to make gradual returns, with public health data guiding their decisions.
“We continue to primarily operate virtually, are monitoring the landscape and are continuing to prepare our offices for transitional return when the time is appropriate,” Ziegler said.
KPMG will not require any employees to report back to its offices or client sites before July.
“There will be a new normal when we return,” Colaco said. “I do expect it to be different than how it was before.”
In the meantime, the industry’s jobs outlook is improving. Deloitte, EY and KPMG said that they are hiring across numerous departments.
“EY is always looking for exceptional talent at every level across all of our service lines... and at any given time has a number of roles open in our Hartford and Stamford locations,” McDonald said. “With the current disruptive market forces, companies are focusing even more on digital and transformation initiatives, leading to high demand for EY consulting talent to help companies re-imagine their business.”
Smaller firms are also growing. Operations Inc. has hired about 15 since last October.
“Our business is experiencing some of the most significant expansion we have seen in our 20 years of existence,” Lewis said. “The post-COVID workplace presents a multitude of challenges and adjustments for just about every company, and we are optimally positioned to provide expert thought leadership and guidance for what is now an exponentially growing base of clientele.”