This paper aims to explore consultancy as a form of expertise in any selected field of knowledge. However, the thrust of the materials covered by this paper is on human resources management – therefore, it discusses consultancy that deals with problems pertaining to the human resources of companies. The human resources of companies are among the top priorities of most companies – and it is wise for management to indeed give utmost importance to the people who make up their organization, the employees of their company.
Capital needed for business expansion, for provision of additional working capital or for investment in an altogether new venture of the company can easily be raised whether by availing of loans from banks or by raising fresh equity infusion through initial public offering of the company stocks. Whichever way should be chosen by the company management, the goal of raising more funds to be used in the company operations can be achieved.
In the same way, more recent improvements and technological breakthroughs in all kinds of industries and business lines can be accessed and put in place in any company’s plants, offices and other sites of operations by simply purchasing the needed equipments and gadgets or the required computer software or program. It is a common observation that company problems brought about by changing techniques and methods through time can, as well, be easily solved. However, the same is not true with problems involving the human resources of the company.
People are a lot more complicated to deal with as compared to capital funds and to modern equipments. People – especially those who are highly efficient and valuable to the company – are more difficult to find. Then, once a company has found them and has employed them, the bigger challenge is to keep them and to ensure that their work performance is consistently above expectations. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Consultancy as a broad term has been misunderstood and given different meanings by different people.
Indeed, Author Edgar H. Schein in his article entitled “Models of Consultation: What Do Organizations Of The 1990s Need? ” has written, “(But) in my observation of consultants over many years, I have found that the essence of process consultation is not well understood at all, and that many who claim to operate from this model do not, in fact, do so. Even such an obvious distinction as process versus content can be very confusing. ” (Schein, E. Models of Consultation: What Do Organizations Of The 1990s Need?
San Francisco: Consultation, Volume 9, Number 4, Winter 1990, excerpt from the introduction to the article) In the same article, Author Schein clarifies that there are various types of consultation services: a) Consultants as Content Experts; b) Consultants as Doctors; and c) The Consultant as Helper or Therapist. This article of Author Schein serves to establish relevant facts and to answer important questions about what being a consultant means and what it does not mean, and then about what consultancy includes and what it does not include.
Meanwhile, there are existing views on the subject of consultants and their role in organizations that rather is not supportive for availing of consultancy services. In an article by Author Phillip L. Hunsaker entitled “Strategies for Organizational Change: The Role of the Inside Change Agent”, he contends that companies do not always need an outside expert to create organizational changes – even major ones. In the same article, Author Hunsaker presents identifying, grooming or developing change agents from within the company.
It will have to be somebody who has been a part of the organization, who knows the company’s policies and objectives, and who would be respected and listened to by the rest of the people in the organization. (Hunsaker, P. Strategies for Organizational Change: The Role Of The Inside Change Agent. Colorado: Western Academy of Management Meeting, 1982) These two are presented as alternative ways to effect a necessary change in the company: to tap the services of a consultant who is a renowned expert in such field or to find a change agent who happens to be already right inside the organization.
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