Survey: Perception of Consultant Quality Still Trails Permanent Staff
PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—November 5, 2007—Hiring managers nationwide rate the quality of their permanent staffs higher than the quality of their consulting staffs, according to a survey conducted by Yoh, a leading provider of talent and outsourcing services and a unit of Day & Zimmermann.The survey asked 899 randomly selected hiring managers outside of Yoh's customer base to grade the quality of their permanent work force on a report card scale, from "A" for "excellent" to "F" for "failure." Further, 513 managers in this group also utilized consultants and rated the quality of that staff as well. The results were as follows:
• A mere 15 percent of employers rated their consultants as "excellent."
• Only 1 out of every 3 managers rated their permanent staff as "excellent."
• Nearly 58 percent rated their consultants as above average, grading them with an "A" or a "B," which trails the grades given to full-time employees.
• Conversely, 83 percent graded permanent workers as above average this year, compared to 80 percent last year.
• Both types of workers had about the same number of "D" and "F' ratings—7 percent for permanent staff, and 8 percent for consultants.
Yoh believes several factors cause hiring managers to rate full-time staff higher than consulting staff. For example, many companies are reluctant to fully invest in or integrate their consulting staff with permanent staff. This lack of investment and assimilation can lead to less-than-ideal hires, inefficient teams, a divided work force, and mediocre output. And, to retain consulting head-count, organizations will move consultants into roles they aren't qualified to handle, such as changing a software engineer to a user support role once a new technology is launched, or moving an individual contributor into a management role. This unfairly sets up consultants to potentially fail in their new role.
"Consulting talent is not a commodity, yet many employers and staffing firms continue to view it that way," says Jim Lanzalotto, Vice President of Strategy and Marketing of Yoh, which places consulting and permanent professionals in companies. "Companies stand to achieve optimal results from both consulting and permanent staff if they understand their business needs, communicate those to a capable staffing partner, integrate teams and commit resources to finding and training quality consultants."
The complete survey data is available to reporters on demand as an Excel spreadsheet. The study's methodology is also documented and available to reporters.
About Yoh
Yoh is one of the largest providers of talent and outsourcing services to customers in the United States. With over 380 million USD in total sales, Yoh operates from more than 75 locations and provides long- and short-term temporary and direct placement of technology and professional personnel, as well as managed staffing services, for the information technology, scientific, engineering, health care and telecommunications communities. For more information, visit yoh.com. Yoh is part of Yoh Services LLC, a Day & Zimmermann Company.
About Day & Zimmermann
Day & Zimmermann accelerates customer success by delivering reliable managed services. Operating from more than 150 worldwide locations with 1.9 billion USD in revenues, the Day & Zimmermann family of companies employs 20,000 professionals and is currently ranked in the top one percent of private companies in America by Forbes. Founded in 1901 and headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, Day & Zimmermann is a former winner of the U.S. National Family Business of the Year award. For more information, visit dayzim.com.
