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PA Consulting Group
PA Consulting Group (formerly Personnel Administration) is a professional services firm that works with public, private and third-sector organisations. It was founded in 1943 by Ernest E. Butten, Tom H. Kirkham and Dr David Seymour, who used a new approach to people management to increase productivity in munitions factories during World War 2. PA grew to become the world’s largest management consultancy by headcount in 1970.
Today, PA employs more than 4,000 people globally.
PA works with organisations in seven industries: consumer and manufacturing; defence and security; energy and utilities; financial services; public services; healthcare and life sciences; and transport. It operates in these industries from offices in the UK, US, Ireland, Nordics and Netherlands. It is also a member of the United Nations Global Compact, a non-binding UN pact that encourages businesses to adopt sustainable practices, and the WePROTECT Global Alliance, a network of governments and companies aiming to tackle online child exploitation and abuse. PA produced the first two Global Threat Assessments for WePROTECT.
The company is privately held, with 65% of shares owned by Jacobs Solutions and the remaining 35% owned by current and former employees. Staff can buy shares during an annual share-trading period.
PA was founded in 1943 as Personnel Administration by Ernest E. Butten, Tom H. Kirkham and Dr David Seymour. Britain's war effort created great demand for munitions and goods, which had to be produced by a relatively unskilled workforce. Butten and his colleagues formed Personnel Administration Limited to provide advice to industry as to how to improve the productivity of their workers. PA was an offshoot of the pre-war Bedaux Company. Bedaux in turn had been developed based on the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank Gilbreth. Butten sought to take the mechanistic and task-orientated concepts of scientific management and add a human dimension to them. The chief idea, along the lines of Douglas McGregor's 'Theory Y', was that by involving the worker in the process of change and a suitable form of ownership, greater gains could be made both by the worker and the organisation.
PA's first assignment was to train volunteer women to assemble the tail gun section of Avro Lancaster bombers, as part of Britain's policy of bringing women into the factories to free up male workers for the armed forces.
By 1964, PA had dropped the name Personnel Administration and was known as simply PA Consulting Group. PA expanded and, by 1970, was the world’s largest management consulting firm by headcount. PA had also expanded geographically, mostly along the lines of the Commonwealth, with its operations in Australia providing about a third of the firm's revenue.
Butten retired from PA in 1970, having earlier sold his 100% shareholding in PA to the Butten Trust in 1958. The Trust was intended as a long-term guardian of PA's fortunes and an assurance that the company would be 'owned by the employees'.
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PA Consulting Group
PA Consulting Group (formerly Personnel Administration) is a professional services firm that works with public, private and third-sector organisations. It was founded in 1943 by Ernest E. Butten, Tom H. Kirkham and Dr David Seymour, who used a new approach to people management to increase productivity in munitions factories during World War 2. PA grew to become the world’s largest management consultancy by headcount in 1970.
Today, PA employs more than 4,000 people globally.
PA works with organisations in seven industries: consumer and manufacturing; defence and security; energy and utilities; financial services; public services; healthcare and life sciences; and transport. It operates in these industries from offices in the UK, US, Ireland, Nordics and Netherlands. It is also a member of the United Nations Global Compact, a non-binding UN pact that encourages businesses to adopt sustainable practices, and the WePROTECT Global Alliance, a network of governments and companies aiming to tackle online child exploitation and abuse. PA produced the first two Global Threat Assessments for WePROTECT.
The company is privately held, with 65% of shares owned by Jacobs Solutions and the remaining 35% owned by current and former employees. Staff can buy shares during an annual share-trading period.
PA was founded in 1943 as Personnel Administration by Ernest E. Butten, Tom H. Kirkham and Dr David Seymour. Britain's war effort created great demand for munitions and goods, which had to be produced by a relatively unskilled workforce. Butten and his colleagues formed Personnel Administration Limited to provide advice to industry as to how to improve the productivity of their workers. PA was an offshoot of the pre-war Bedaux Company. Bedaux in turn had been developed based on the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank Gilbreth. Butten sought to take the mechanistic and task-orientated concepts of scientific management and add a human dimension to them. The chief idea, along the lines of Douglas McGregor's 'Theory Y', was that by involving the worker in the process of change and a suitable form of ownership, greater gains could be made both by the worker and the organisation.
PA's first assignment was to train volunteer women to assemble the tail gun section of Avro Lancaster bombers, as part of Britain's policy of bringing women into the factories to free up male workers for the armed forces.
By 1964, PA had dropped the name Personnel Administration and was known as simply PA Consulting Group. PA expanded and, by 1970, was the world’s largest management consulting firm by headcount. PA had also expanded geographically, mostly along the lines of the Commonwealth, with its operations in Australia providing about a third of the firm's revenue.
Butten retired from PA in 1970, having earlier sold his 100% shareholding in PA to the Butten Trust in 1958. The Trust was intended as a long-term guardian of PA's fortunes and an assurance that the company would be 'owned by the employees'.