Slalom’s Orange County office, which overlooks the Irvine Spectrum from the 15th floor of the 300 Spectrum Center office tower, has the feel of a home.
A kitchen is next to an island with bar stools. Nearby are tables for meals. A couch and sofa are positioned for a good view of a giant flat screen television. A ready-to-play shuffleboard stands behind the couch.
The amenities serve a key purpose, officials for Orange County’s fifth-largest management consulting firm say.
“In consulting, we don’t have products—we have people,” Slalom Orange County General Manager Pritha Sridharan told the Business Journal.
“Our entire value proposition is people. They are the ones leading the change in our clients. They are the ones representing our brands.
“One of the things we do is focus on employee experience.”
That attention to employees has paid off for Slalom, which ranks No. 2 on the Business Journal’s latest list of Best Places to Work, in the Large Company category—for firms with more than 250 U.S. employees (see list, page 38).
Global Consultants
Seattle-based Slalom, which was formed in 2001, has zoomed to $3 billion in annual sales and 12,500 employees, a 59% increase from a year ago.
It calls itself a “a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all.”
“We are a full-scale consulting firm for strategy and technology consulting, helping our clients establish priorities,” Sridharan said.
“We talk about this philosophy of enablement, where we’re all about working with clients, helping them get to where they need to go and moving on to the next thing.”
Among notable projects, its currently helping an Orange County real estate company build a core digital product that customers can use on their phones.
The company says it operates on 10 core values, including “Do what is right, always, take ownership and get it done.” It also encourages employees to stay humble and curious, and smile.
Slalom prides itself on treating employees well, citing awards from Forbes, Glassdoor, the Human Rights Campaign and Consulting Magazine.
The local office has made the Business Journal’s Best Places to Work list each year since 2016.
It has done so while significantly expanding its headcount. In the past year, Slalom’s Orange County office grew 43% to 153 employees with growth in areas like finance, healthcare and real estate.
“We’ve hired a ton,” said Jay Kuderka, Slalom’s regional sales manager for Southern California. “Finding people is hard.”
To entice its employees, it gives out monthly and quarterly employee awards like gift cards.
The local office regularly hosts happy hours, and its quarterly meetings are one hour long followed by an activity such as Beach Day, Disneyland or an Angels game.
“The weather is so good here that we should take advantage of it,” Sridharan said.
It also hosts weekend events for not just employees but also their significant others at places like Santa Barbara, Mammoth and Las Vegas.
No Burn Outs
Sridharan said many of Slalom’s employees come from large competing consulting firms, which are notorious for working employees more than 70 hours a week.
Those employees often burn out because of the constant travel, Sridharan said. Hence, Slalom prefers to hire locally to work with local companies.
Slalom regularly tracks employee hours to make sure they don’t top 55 hours a week.
“We don’t want to work people to death,” Sridharan said.
About 90% of its local employees work remotely, not just because of the pandemic but also because consulting has often had a hybrid work environment where consultants are often at their clients’ offices, she said.
Still, the firm’s regular surveys found that employees missed the social parts of the office.
Thus, Sridharan worked on increasing social events.
After a two-year hiatus, Slalom Orange County on June 23 hosted its 6th annual networking happy hour event at the Hive & Honey Rooftop Bar at the Marriott Irvine Spectrum.
Slalom encourages a “work/life balance” so that employees can “truly love their work and their future with Slalom.”
Its benefits include parental leave, 401(k) with a match, adoption and fertility assistance, and short/long term disability benefits, just to name a few.
Sridharan, the mother of two young children, has seen firsthand the results of a balance between work and home.
“Before I had children, there were so many things I didn’t know,” Sridharan said. “I’ve learned so much about the importance of managing home versus work schedules.”