Company Profile: Personnel Administration Limited
ounded in 1943 as Personnel Administration by three Englishmen: 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.[3][4] Like the other three firms that dominated consulting in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, PA was an offshoot of the pre-war Bedaux Company.[5] Bedaux in turn had been developed from the time and motion '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.[6]
PA's first assignment was to train housewives to assemble the tail gun section for the Avro Lancaster bombers, as part of Britain's policy of bringing women into the factories in order to free-up male workers for the armed forces.[4][7] By 1964 the company had dropped the name Personnel Administration and was known as simply PA Consulting Group.[8]
1950-1970[edit]
PA expanded over the next 20 years, and by 1970 it was one of the world’s largest management consulting firms by headcount (closely followed by Booz Allen and McKinsey).[9] staff can buy shares with deferred elements to bonus, 80% own them. PA had also expanded geographically, mostly along the lines of the Commonwealth: with its operation in Australia providing about a third of the firm's revenue.[10]
In the 1960s PA diversified its business significantly by developing the use of the 'newspaper box' advertisement for recruitment.[10]
Butten retired from PA in 1970, having
PA's first assignment was to train housewives to assemble the tail gun section for the Avro Lancaster bombers, as part of Britain's policy of bringing women into the factories in order to free-up male workers for the armed forces.[4][7] By 1964 the company had dropped the name Personnel Administration and was known as simply PA Consulting Group.[8]
1950-1970[edit]
PA expanded over the next 20 years, and by 1970 it was one of the world’s largest management consulting firms by headcount (closely followed by Booz Allen and McKinsey).[9] staff can buy shares with deferred elements to bonus, 80% own them. PA had also expanded geographically, mostly along the lines of the Commonwealth: with its operation in Australia providing about a third of the firm's revenue.[10]
In the 1960s PA diversified its business significantly by developing the use of the 'newspaper box' advertisement for recruitment.[10]
Butten retired from PA in 1970, having