Organisational Culture at Oaklin Consulting

When deciding which management consultancy firm to join, candidates will consider many factors and in such a dynamic industry, organisational culture is becoming increasingly important. Organisational culture can vary greatly from company to company, and the ways in which employers build teams and support staff have lasting effects across a business. It is an important factor to consider which company has the best organisational culture for you, so do your research.

In this video, Catriona Young discusses the company culture at London based management consultancy, Oaklin Consultancy:

"So, some of my own highlights since I joined Oaklin. I’ve been there four months and in that time I've been to four different LLPs. Our LLP’s are our monthly meetings where on Friday afternoon the whole firm comes together and we talk about current strategy and activities related to that, BD activities.

It's an opportunity for us to know what's going on in the firm and you know everything that's going on but it also needs that you can input to that and that you're involved in the implementation of it.

There's also often training involved in those LLP’s so people who have got experience in one area or they might have been to training themselves recently or been to a workshop or a conference they can come and they can share that learning with us, so we've all got the opportunity to learn a bit.

And then with those LLP’s we always have some sort of whole organisation social where we go out for the night before. We might go for breakfast in the morning - we're flexible so we can try and get as many people there as possible – drinks. I think our next one we're going bowling, which is old school. But it's great because we're all on different clients, we're often not together so on Fridays is when we all come to the office, but beyond that, we don't see each other on a day to day basis, so it means that we're able to catch up with each other.

Then we've also got newsletters, there's been two since I've started I think. They come out over two months and they cover things like a spotlight on a client. They might tell us about new people that are starting in the firm, it's just an opportunity for us to keep up-to-date with what's happening at our own leisure when we've got a bit of time.

Something that's been quite exciting for a whole organisation is we've got a new charity partner. When I started, I was involved in developing our CSR initiative and we are now working with Young Minds who are a mental health charity that supports young people. We've had two different fundraising activities. The first was a sweepstake for the World Cup, which I got Croatia, so not too hopeful, and the second is happening in a few weeks’ time, where a number of people from Oaklin are competing in a Tough Mudder, so you're welcome to sponsor us as well. So that's really exciting and something new that's happened this year for our firm.

On a personal note, something that's exciting for me is I got a new qualification. While I was waiting to go on the client-side, I had a bit of time. Oaklin don't have a big training school or training program like some other organizations might have but what we do have is the flexibility to identify what we would like to do and what we'd like to learn and then to go ahead and find opportunities to go and do that. So, I knew I wanted to get a change management qualification identified that ProSci were a great company to do that with and I was able to go to an external course. I found it one week went on it the next week and the ease that we are able to do that is something that's really refreshing.

We've had one NAHOAWD, this stands for Not At Home Or At Work Day. I think most places call it a ‘Strategy Day’. So they are twice a year and we had one last week. So, we were in Richmond we stayed in a hotel, overnight, had dinner drinks everyone came together and then spent a full day strategising.

Where that's different to this is about what's happening now and this is more about our longer-term plans and our longer-term strategy. Again, it's with the whole organisation partners consultants, operations staff so everyone has the opportunity to help build the firm.

There's a lot of growth happening in our firm and so that these are really important, and I think that's reflected by since I joined in February there have been three new people that joined the firm with the most recent starting this week. Most of all, I have also started working with my first client, which is what I’m there to do. So, I’m am working for a big six energy provider and they are going through a program of separating part of their business and we're helping with work out, ‘what do they need to do to separate the business?’ And then once it's separated, how are they actually going to run it in the new world. So, there's a number of us they work in a variety of different things from the people to the process to the IT side of it."

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