Remote work in lockdown

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One year of corona lockdown at the consistency management consultancy

A year ago, we completely fulfilled the cliché of a management consultant: From Monday to Thursday, we accompanied our clients on site on various projects. On Fridays, most of our colleagues were already planning to work from home. As for so many, the lockdown that began on March 18 meant an unprecedented work change for us too. Thanks to our years of experience in digitalization, team coaching and remote work, the transition to almost 100% home office was comparatively smooth for us. The decisive factor here was our in-house MS Teams, which became the linchpin of our collaboration from one day to the next. As people are at the heart of everything we do, we quickly asked ourselves the following questions: What about team cohesion and the interpersonal-social component that is essential in management consulting? What role does the absence of contact play in the coaching process? Can digital appointments really effectively replace face-to-face meetings? You can read more about this in this blog post!

Home office vs. remote work in consulting

As we were already working from home on Fridays before the lockdown, the technical changeover at consistency was easy to manage. The biggest challenge for each individual quickly became the new daily routine and the lack of physical contact with colleagues and customers. We took a look back over the last few months and summarized what has helped us: 1. Virtual coffee and lunch breaks: At consistency, we value a close-knit team and really enjoy the family atmosphere. We have therefore found other ways to maintain contact. For example, we deliberately meet regularly for a coffee together in front of the laptop camera 2. Own routines: We recommend establishing your own daily schedules and routines to give your working day a new structure, as a separation between work and private life in the remote office is essential. This can be achieved, for example, by having a proper breakfast and changing from pyjamas to business attire. Everyone should find their own measure here: The colleague with small children, for whom home schooling is also involved, will structure their daily routine differently to the single colleague. Flexibility is the word of the hour here. 3. Team events: Virtual escape games, like personalized face masks and home workout equipment, have been absolute bestsellers since 2020. We have also successfully tried out the remote event trend both with consistency and with our project teams and recommend such virtual events to strengthen team spirit and bonding during lockdown. Whether it’s a guided online escape room event or the obligatory gin tasting. We have also developed and implemented our own formats, so that even the annual Christmas party – in remote mode – did not fall through. Even if, of course, it was no substitute for a real party…

Traveling professionally as a management consultant in Corona times

The new situation without project-related travel was unusual for many of us, because traveling to our customers was simply part of the job. Like everyone else, we now only travel when absolutely necessary. Now we use our travel time differently, for example for a morning yoga or workout session, internal tasks or to organize ourselves before the home office routine. But even today, traveling can’t always be completely avoided, because a project launch or a notary appointment requires us to be there in person. Our first priority is safety first and regular tests are a new part of face-to-face meetings. An additional advantage: by reducing travel, we also reduce our CO² emissions. Keeping an eye on this and reducing it has always been important to us, but Covid-19 has certainly given everyone an incentive to think about what could be improved in the future. We are using this occasion to look at further measures to reduce our carbon footprint.

(Agile) coaching in lockdown - people need people

Some of our projects started during the Covid-19 period and some colleagues therefore only got to know their teams virtually. This is an exciting situation, as our profession as management consultants is all about people and relationships. We have learned that it is also possible to set up new teams or keep existing teams together and develop them further in the virtual working reality. Nevertheless, there are constellations that are not ideal when working remotely, such as feedback and coaching, as the majority of information flows non-verbally. This means that the other person’s body language is practically completely hidden from us and facial expressions are only available to us to a limited extent. In addition, in very rare face-to-face meetings, we realize that the efficiency of real interpersonal exchange cannot be replaced by video calls. Even though we are well equipped to support our customers during the difficult Covid-19 period, we are looking forward to more physical meetings and personal contact in the hopefully near future.

The future of management consulting after Covid-19

There are currently increasing signs that the Covid-19 lockdown will also change the daily routine of most management consultancies in the medium to long term. This is because our clients’ day-to-day business will also change: Many companies are already planning to reduce weekly mandatory attendance days for their employees. As a result, external consultants will certainly no longer have to be on site as often, but will continue to provide their consulting services to a large extent in virtual meeting rooms. And just as we used to spend only one day in the home office, we will perhaps travel to the office from time to time. And enjoy this in particular: the closeness of the people, the office gossip over coffee, the fireworks of ideas in the workshop on site, and yes, also the traveling. Or maybe you need new ideas on how to make collaboration in your remote teams even better, more efficient or more creative? Feel free to get in touch with us!

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