Job title: Global head of human resources
Company: PA Management Consultants
Its all about respect as Don Corleone might have said. This time it was James Cullens who was saying it. One of the challenges of working for a professional services firm is youve got to earn respect to consult the consultants.
PA prides itself on its ability to drive through solutions to the implementation stage. Some of its successes include helping Courage develop the John Smith widget for its canned draught beer and Evian to create new lifestyle designs for its bottled water products. It also helped MAAF devise a cattle-tracing system that contributed to the ending of the beef ban in the UK.
The biggest headache
A company like PA lives or dies on its human capital. Its not surprising, therefore, to find that Cullens biggest headache is recruitment. Staff numbers have grown from 1,942 to 3,400 between 1996 and 2000 and he thinks the company will need to increase that figure by 25% globally this year. The headache was made worse for consultants last year when the dotcoms lured talent from the big consultancies. But PA wasnt too badly affected and the trickle dried up after April 2000 when dotcom failures stripped some of the gloss away.
Some who left are now coming back to PA, Cullens says. The company is attractive, he says, because of its unique reward structure. While its basic pay levels are not particularly high in comparison to competitors, the potential bonuses are reputedly larger than elsewhere. Part of the bonus is allocated in shares. In fact, PA is committed to paying 57.4% of its profit as bonuses. This is the only way you acquire shares in PA, says Cullens, theyre like gold dust. Theyre valued at 3 so the overall reward package can be high.
HR in the wild east
Cullens is used to tough jobs. And like Don Corleone he knows what a dead body looks like. In 1995-96 Cullens helped to set up Mars first plant in the former Soviet Union. There was no infrastructure then, he says, and if someone was knocked down by a car or shot by the Mafia the body would be left for days before being picked up life was pretty cheap out there. It was something of a wild east where you had to check in your guns, if you had any, in your hotel. You had to learn to avoid dangerous situations, he says, particularly anything to do with the Mafia who could be spotted fairly easily as they were often large, wore polo necks and lots of gold. The most worrying thing, though, Cullens remembers, was that it all seemed a bit of fun and you did not recognise the full dangers.
Cullens recalls having to sack a poor performer in Khazakhstan. The woman brought Cullens a scan of a baby to try to force him to reinstate her. The fact that she was unmarried and Muslim gave me a clue, says Cullens, that she was not really pregnant. Later, someone from the security forces turned up at Cullens office in Moscow. He was a contact of the sacked woman and informed Cullens that it would not be good for you to come back. PA in comparison must seem a doddle.
