Vault’s Verdict

If you’re interested in healthcare consulting, ECG Management Consultants is a solid firm to consider. Insiders love its team-oriented environment, where staff work together to help each other come up with innovative solutions while maintaining a good work-life balance. They also love how the firm makes room for exceptional individuals to shine: High performers can quickly climb the ranks, and the firm offers a non-partner track for senior staff who don’t want to follow a traditional consulting career track.

That said, consultants at ECG are a busy bunch. The firm generally expects its consultants to maintain high utilization, which means the job is definitely not a nine-to-five. While the firm offers unlimited PTO and encourages as much work-life balance as it can, its merit-based culture can incentivize a hard-charging lifestyle.

That said, those who can cut it at ECG are well-rewarded for their efforts. The firm regularly benchmarks its salaries to ensure they’re keeping up with industry standards, offers a generous bonus policy, and provides a solid benefits package. Altogether, this is a great firm to consider if you’re looking for the opportunity to work hard on improving the U.S. healthcare system.

Employee Reviews:

Firm Culture

“ECG has a team-oriented environment where consultants are able to work with other members of the team and help manage workloads, a mentorship program for younger staff consultants, and a level playing field with senior managers and up where you get exposed to working with them on every project.”

“ECG encourages in-office presence by its consultants whenever possible. We believe this is an essential part of the firm's culture and affords casual personal interactions between junior team members and more experienced consultants, managers, principals and partners.  We also support those who are classified as remote and make effective use of Teams and other mediums for both firm-wide communications and client interactions.”

“Your advancement at the firm is determined by your work ethic and commitment.”

“The work is interesting and meaningful, but ultimately it is the people who create the environment and experience that has kept me at the firm for the majority or my career.”

Quality of Life

“ECG expects employees to be busy and billing the majority of their time. We don't have many colleagues on the beach. Generally, our consultants sit above 70 percent utilization, often closer to 80 percent to 95 percent, so the workday is full. However, if you put in good effort, no one thinks twice about you taking time away from the office.”

“We only travel when necessary for the project and have relative flexibility within the week to accomplish personal tasks like dentist appointments and doctor appointments. The firm has unlimited PTO, and it is quite easy to take time off, but you do have to plan in advance to ensure your responsibilities are covered.”

“The firm has great seminars on work-life balance, and it sponsors happy hours and other engagement events. It also funds a nanny service to help us with childcare to bridge gaps in daycare and school.”

“ECG promotes a work life balance for all employees. If some staff consultants are experiencing a higher workload than others, staff will help. Consulting is an industry that ebbs and flows when work is busy vs when it isn't. ECG leadership creates an environment where, if one staff member is seeing more utilization than others, that person has the ability to ask for help to make time for life outside of work.”

Career Development

“The best part of ECG's career development program are the formal feedback opportunities. We meet with our managers every six months for a formal review and meet with project managers every time we bill 100 hours for a project. Additionally, my manager often builds informal reviews into our one-on-one agendas.”

“ECG offers both partner track and non-partner track opportunities, with the latter being an option once someone is ready for advancement to the principal level, which is one step below partner. Up to that point, ECG has a well-defined career progression framework, an effective calibration process for all levels below principal, and uses tools such as annual growth and development plans.”

“ECG has implemented a consulting pool where staff consultants are able to be staffed on a wide range of projects while still reporting to their primary project manager. Staff consultants can work on M&A, strategy, performance transformation, academic healthcare, and other industry-focused projects.”

“The formal training could use work, especially with different content areas. There are plans to do this in the coming year. However, ECG’s mentorship is great. We have peer and senior leader mentors when we join the firm.”

Compensation

“The firm routinely conducts pay audits and peer benchmarking to ensure compensation remains competitive and there is no gender or racial bias in pay bands. Our unlimited PTO policy is a big perk, and employees are encouraged to make use of it. We also have generous family leave policies, and the concierge service is fantastic for personal needs.”

“The compensation structure is comparable to other consulting firms, with base pay for analysts and consultants being at or slightly below market rates. Senior managers and leaders receive a bonus package more closely tied to overall sales and their contribution to billable work. At these levels, total compensation may be on par with or slightly higher than other boutique healthcare consulting firms.”

“I like and dislike our bonus program. The good part is it is formulaic, so it’s not subjective. The negative is that some people are given more opportunities to achieve more points when they don’t have to do much. For example, people that generate a lot of leads will turn to the same senior leaders to help close the deal and those leaders receive credit while others are not given the same opportunity.”

“The compensation package is very fair and transparent. It compares extremely favorably to other healthcare consulting firms.”

Community Engagement/DEI

“ECG has been investing in DEI initiatives, especially over the past five years.  This has included hiring a consultant to conduct a review of our firm and develop an action plan to advance our performance. Recently, ECG has hired an experienced DEI professional who reports directly to the CEO to lead our initiatives in this area.”

“In the past, DEI efforts the firm made did not appear to be genuine, but current leadership is making an honest effort.”

“We are a meritocracy-driven organization. We've done a lot to address unconscious bias and improve representation of women and minorities in our firm's leadership. I think our management committee now has more women on it than men, and we have good minority role models among the partnership.”

“In addition to counseling services and step challenges, we all have subscriptions to Calm, the meditation app. Our onsite gym is state of the art and hosts free classes for cycling, HIT, and yoga. Our firm also caters healthy lunches regularly.”

Business Outlook

“We have a niche and are good at what we do within that niche. Morale generally seems to be high. We are conservative about growth and may accordingly pass up on some opportunities, but on the other hand we never really have to make layoffs.”

“There is a clear recognition that the ability to access, manipulate, and apply large data sets is going to set consulting firms apart as our clients increasingly look for data-driven strategic decisions. We are evolving our capabilities in data analytics and have devoted more hiring resources to individuals who come to the firm with extensive quantitative experience.”

“ECG is in a very strong position. We have expanded our scope of services and have grown both organically and through small strategic acquisitions. Employee engagement levels are strong and have improved year over year. Our net promoter score is almost twice that of our closest competitor, and the firm's thought leadership is unmatched by any of our peer competitors.”

“ECG is still focuses on a 'fee for service' consulting model, and our rates have spiraled upward over the last couple of years. Our services have become more sophisticated and innovative, but we price them on an hourly professional fee basis.”

Hiring Process

“The hiring process starts with a screening interview conducted by a recruiter, followed by an initial interview with a consultant to assess fit and experience. Candidates who move forward are invited to a super day, which consists of multiple interviews with various team members, along with a case study to evaluate problem-solving and analytical skills.”

“Our interview process consists of a phone screening with a recruiter, a virtual meeting room screen with a consultant, then interviews with three senior-level consultants. We also conduct an excel proficiency assessment and writing sample evaluation.”

“The ideal candidate is intelligent, hardworking, able to have a conversation with anyone, and confident but not excessively so.”

“The ideal candidate exclusively wants to work with clients in the healthcare space, wants to work in consulting with relatively little travel, is willing to learn and takes feedback, and is ready to put in really productive 45–50-hour weeks.”

Interview Questions

“For case interviews, we will give someone a written business problem and make them write a page or two about their suggested solutions.”

“Cases range from understanding a client's strategic or market position to reflecting upon operational or financial challenges. Part of the case interview is a presentation requirement by the candidate. Interview questions focus on understanding a candidate’s critical thinking skills, teamwork, intellectual curiosity, and career objectives.”

“Could you tell me about a time you were given an assignment that may have normally been assigned to a more junior employee? Could you tell me about a time you were given an impossible deadline? Could you tell me about a time you finished your current assignment and weren't sure what to do next? Could you tell me about a time you joined an established team after the project or work had already started?”

“Could you tell me about a time you weren't sure how you were doing on a project or assignment at work? Could you tell me about a time you submitted an assignment that wasn't your best work? Tell me about a time you worked with a challenging team.”