Why Corona wasn’t all bad –
hybrid-working-at-ADWEKO-campus .
“Consultants are always on the road, have no hobbies or time for friends or family” – You may have heard these or similar statements about being a consultant. To be honest, there was also a spark of truth in that. Until 2020, it was normal for us consultants to travel a lot. Each week was spent at the client’s site, in a hotel or in a project apartment. Maintaining social contacts outside of work or even hobbies was not always easy – especially when you had to travel several hours to the project location.
If there is a “before 2020,” there is also a “after 2020”
And we can say that the pandemic, as bad as it was, did bring about a positive change in the world of work. Let us now take a look at the changes that have taken place in recent years.
Dennis Getzkow, Senior Consultant and Christian van de Logt, Principal Consultant in Managed Services
Consulting stage and university echo
When working as a consultant, you will always find parallels to your university days. How is everyday life at the university? Some lectures are mandatory, while others are optional. The important thing at the end of the semester is to be prepared for the exams and to have taken care of all the homework, presentations, etc. It doesn’t matter whether you take care of the tasks at the university, in the university library or at home.
In consulting, it’s now similar: we have project-dependent mandatory appointments, but at the same time we often have many opportunities to balance our work with our private lives. In the end, it’s the result that counts, whether it’s a project completion or preparation for a deadline.
With the pandemic, remote work became essential, as you probably know it from online teaching. In other words, a lot of work was suddenly done from the home office. Although this was not unknown to us consultants, it was still rather a marginal phenomenon. In many projects, Friday was associated with home office.
At the beginning of the Corona pandemic, it was not possible for counselors, as well as students, to work on site. Just as digitization has moved into society, e.g., with e-sick notes, it now had to be implemented in business and teaching – and quickly. As a result, the tasks at hand could only be completed remotely, i.e. in the home office.
Hybrid Working as a Standard
Working 100% from home has now given way to so-called hybrid working in many projects. And that’s where the memories of university come in: we are often at home and work from there – with all the benefits for a good work-life balance. Agreements then take place via common chat tools such as Teams or Skype. However, there are also trips to the project site again – just not every week, as it used to be.
Instead of home office Fridays, there are now entire home office weeks. This allows us to organize our work and private lives much more flexibly than before. The time saved benefits both areas. In addition, some tasks can be more concentrated at home than in a crowded open-plan office.
Irreplaceability On Site
At the same time, we also appreciate the “on-site” work and that too independent of project deadlines. Now it’s no longer a daily routine to sit on the train and travel to the customer every week. Just like learning groups around a table, there are topics in counseling that are more effective when worked on locally.
One of these topics is, for example, the induction of new colleagues. Familiarization and integration into the team simply work better on site. The other topics concern not only the induction but also the general cooperation.
If you have any questions, you can just ask your office neighbors and don’t have to find a free slot in the bulging calendars.
You shouldn’t underestimate the so-called “grapevine” either: Especially over coffee, one or the other problem has been discussed across projects. In line with our motto, we are a colorful blend of spices, different colleagues bring expertise in different areas. These synergy effects have already solved some complex problems.
And as the saying goes “first the work, then the pleasure”. In the evening, for example, you can head out with the project team for a delicious dinner with a cold drink, or arrange to meet for a workout at the gym. During such after-work activities, colleagues get to know each other better and may even find common interests. This also makes integration into existing teams much easier and more pleasant for everyone.
In conclusion, we can say that for career starters in consulting, less changes than one might think. Of course, not everything can be compared to university. Moving from college to professional life will always be exciting and open the door to new experiences, skills, but also challenges. We wanted to offer you the current view of our hybrid work model here. If you would like to take the step into “our” world, if you are enthusiastic about new technologies and a modern and flexible working environment, then you are welcome to become part of our ADWEKO family at the ADWEKO Campus.
talk to
christian van de logt!
