Every company has initiatives to address the retention and performance of their talent. As a talent partner to our clients, it’s our goal to help address these issues.
We do this in part through our consultant engagement process—an end-to-end journey with our consultants that emphasizes transparency, open communication, accountability, and, ultimately, productivity and success.
Jaime Pullin, Director of Talent Strategy for Evergreen, our professional services division, says “we are on a mission” to be a career partner for our consultants, and a true talent partner for our clients by going beyond simply finding and placing talent.
“I think that the way we care for our consultants is a differentiator for us in the staffing industry, and possibly even more of a differentiator for us in the professional services industry,” she says.
Jaime says the program has resulted in better retention of consultants for our clients, and our consultants have shown more fulfillment and happiness in their roles. That’s emphasized by Insight Global having an NPS (Net Promoter Score) double the staffing industry average.
To detail more about why consultant engagement matters, what goes into these programs, and some successful from enacting consultant engagement, we asked Jaime and Candice Ozanne, a Consultant Engagement Regional for Insight Global, for their expertise.
Why does consultant engagement matter so much to us as a company?
JP: It is just a more humanistic way of thinking about work. It’s all about putting our people at the heart and center of our work and ensuring they have a great experience. By obsessing over the consultant experience, we’re being more of a talent partner to our customers. We are on a mission to not only just place great talent—we’ve done that for over 20 years— but making sure that they’re also productive and fulfilled in their role. It really helps us drive productivity, performance, and retention for our customers.
CO: Usually, people want to leave jobs because they’re not happy, they’re not finding fulfillment, or they are not finding success. Sometimes they’re just between jobs and they have a family to take care of. So we have an obligation to make that experience for the consultant—and the company they work for—as seamless, warm, and as human as possible.

So why does consultant experience matter to our clients?
JP: Every company in the world has a common goal—or problem—of how do we make sure our people are productive, and how do we keep our people working for us? We have a robust and intentional framework for how we prioritize helping solve that problem in part through the consultant experience. You don’t have to convince companies to care or buy in to this, because we’re solving a problem that every company faces, and we are doing it in a humanistic way.
CO: I like to say our consultant experience is our customer’s experience. The good experience can start with having smooth onboarding, which means it’s usually quicker, which means you get that talent that you hired on in the door faster, which means that you’re less likely to lose them. And a great experience also prevents you from having to go find talent again if they leave soon after getting hired.
Candice, what is the purpose of your role?
CO: My team and I are responsible for representing the voice of the consultant. We are fanatical about enriching lives and ensuring our consultants feel valued. And by proxy for our customers, it means that they have highly productive talent and they get that talent productive quickly.
How do you ensure consultants are happy, cared for, and productive?
CO: Consultant engagement is a suite of touch points or meetings we have with our consultants and customers designed to ensure they’re both set up for success.
For instance, before the consultant starts, we have orientation meetings with the consultant and hiring manager. After the consultant starts, there are regular check-ins with the consultant and performance reviews with the manager.
Then, before the end of the contract, we talk to the manager about whether they want to move this person full-time, extend their contract, or the work may be done! That’s when we start to have a conversation with the consultant about offboarding from this role then work with them to find another one, so they don’t feel a gap in employment.
JP: We are involved end to end throughout that unique journey for that consultant.

The engagement program sounds very personable. How do you keep it personal when you’re working on large-scale projects?
CO: The beauty of the program is it’s absolutely customizable and scalable. Within Evergreen, we work together to determine how we can successfully execute on our strategy with each unique project during implementation. We do this in partnership with our account managers, recruiters, and delivery teams.
Our goal is to make sure that the consultant is still getting that white-glove service, whether it be a five-person project or a 300-person project. The consultant should never feel a difference in our level of commitment to them.
Could you share a success story?
CO: One that really touched me was, after a performance review with just the client and account manager, the customer was considering letting go of a consultant—a coder. There was a communication gap, and the customer didn’t really know what she was working on, and she wasn’t really taking feedback.
So instead resorting to trying to find a backfill, we engaged. Has she been given this feedback? Does she know where she stands? Can we call timeout and could we give this consultant the opportunity to improve by giving her this feedback? It turned out that she was embarrassed to speak up and say she can’t really understand English—it’s her second language. She was having a hard time ramping up. We were totally able to change the dynamic of the relationship by engaging and intervening. And with new processes in place to give feedback and clearer communication, she became one of the highest producers on the team. The client was so thankful they didn’t let her go, because she is a phenomenal coder. Then, we were able sponsor her visa to continue working in America because she was able to stay onsite for long enough.
JP: There are so many more stories like the one Candice just shared happening daily across our business. With implementing this level of consultant engagement, we’re seeing back out rates (people accepting a job offer but not starting) and early termination rates (leaving a job before the contract is up) plummeting year-over-year. So, retention of our consultants is increasing year over year for our clients.
What do you want people to take away most about our consultant engagement program?
JP: The care we have for people and that being our brand through everything we do. People are at the heart and center of our work. The gift of employment is incredible, and then we’re going to be there with our consultants and clients throughout their entire journey together to make sure they are both successful. That’s what matters at the end of the day.
To learn more about how we build high performance teams—and make them successful—contact us below!