10 Biggest Human Resources (HR) Consulting Companies In The World

The 10 biggest human resources (HR) consulting companies in the world have handled major personnel decisions, salary strategies, and executive searches for the world’s biggest companies, among other HR-related concerns.

The human resources consulting industry began as an offshoot of management consulting, the practice of assisting organizations in their performance and operations. The companies involved in management consulting, which analyze problems within an organization and propose solutions to those dilemmas, increasingly saw human resource management as an important facet of their overall businesses. From there, human resources consulting emerged, and two special roles were developed: expert resource consulting and process/people consulting. The expert resource consultant can pinpoint human resources problems based on their past experience in the field and can even assist in the implementation of the solution. Meanwhile, the process/people consultant can search for methods that empower companies to solve their own human resources problems. For both types of consultants, human resources fields that they study include employee engagement, compensation, employee benefits, retirement, mergers and acquisitions, and talent mobility.

Speaking of compensation, some of these consulting firms had a hand in determining the salaries of current CEOs. for related reading, Insider Monkey has a list of the 11 highest paid CEOs in the world.

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Back to our current list, we based it on the results of Vault.com’s annual management and strategy consulting survey, under which 17,139 consultants were asked about which consulting firms are the best overall. The survey also includes rankings of the top human resources consulting companies in the world, as well as rankings for other consulting fields such as IT operations, finance, health, and a dozen more, based on votes from consultants. The company that got the most votes in the human resources category garnered 33.1% of the total votes, with the tenth-ranked entry having 12.2%. This signifies that even among the highly regarded human resources consulting firms, there is a significant difference in perception between the top company and other top-ranked companies. Therefore, for the purposes of this list, the companies’ rankings are based on the votes cast by these consultants.

We should note that the size and reputation of the companies surely figured into the voting process, so the rankings of the companies likely reflects, at least partially, the size and stature of each consulting firm in the human resources field.

The 10 biggest human resources (HR) consulting companies in the world include Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN); Aon Hewitt, owned by Aon plc (NYSE:AON); Bain & Co.; Boston Consulting Group; Deloitte; Hay Group, owned by Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY); McKinsey & Co.; Mercer, owned by Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. (NYSE:MMC); PricewaterhouseCoopers; and Willis Towers Watson PLC (NASDAQ:WLTW).

Head to the next page to begin the countdown of the best firms for human resources consulting.

10. Bain & Co.

One of the Big Three strategy consulting firms (colloquially known as “MBB”), Bain & Co. is an American business consulting firm founded in 1973 in Boston. The private company, which employs about 7,000 people, raked in $2.3 billion in revenue in 2015, according to Forbes.

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9. PricewaterhouseCoopers

One of the Big Four accounting firms that made it to this list, PricewaterhouseCoopers is a multinational professional services network headquartered in London, formed in 1998 by a merger between accounting firms Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse. The company’s revenue as of its fiscal year ended June 2016 was $35.9 billion, with $11.5 billion coming from its advisory practice.

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8. Hay Group, owned by Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY)

Hay Group, owned by Korn/Ferry International (NYSE:KFY) since its $452 million acquisition in September 2015, is a human capital advisory and management consulting firm headquartered in Philadelphia and operating in 49 countries. Korn/Ferry, considered the world’s largest provider of executive search, earned $1.29 billion in revenue in 2016.

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7. Boston Consulting Group

The Boston Consulting Group, also one of the MBB, was founded in Boston in 1963. (Looks like there’s something about Boston that attracts a lot of consulting.) The company employs 14,000 people, 6,200 of which are consultants, and earned $5.6 billion in revenue last year.

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6. Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN) is a management consulting and professional services company that has been based in Ireland since 2009, but traces its roots back to the now-defunct Arthur Andersen accounting firm. With $32.9 billion in net revenue in 2016, Accenture is also a leading outsourcing company, with tens of thousands of workers in India and the Philippines.

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Of the next two companies on this list of the 10 biggest human resources (HR) consulting companies in the world, one is a member of the Big Four, while the other is part of the MBB.

5. McKinsey & Co.

McKinsey & Co. is considered the most prestigious management consultancy in the world, with clientele spanning the biggest companies in the world. With $9.4 billion in revenue as of 2015, according to Forbes, the company is part of the MBB. However, unlike its two Bostonian competitors, McKinsey is a New York company.

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4. Deloitte

Deloitte is one of the Big Four accounting firms, and the biggest among the four in terms of revenue and number of employees. The UK-based private company employs 244,400 people and took in $36.8 billion in revenue last year.

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3. Aon Hewitt, owned by Aon plc (NYSE:AON)

Aon Hewitt, owned by Aon plc (NYSE:AON), is a human capital and management consulting company formerly known as Hewitt Associates. Insurance broker Aon, which bought Hewitt in 2010 for $4.9 billion, had $11.6 billion in revenue last year, with $4.2 billion coming from its HR solutions wing. Aon sold its HR and outsourcing platform to Blackstone Group LP (NYSE:BX) earlier this year for $4.8 billion.

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2. Willis Towers Watson PLC (NASDAQ:WLTW)

Willis Towers Watson was formed in January 2016 via the $18 billion merger of human resources consulting firm Towers Watson and insurance broker Willis Group. The combined company earned $7.8 billion in 2016.

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1. Mercer, owned by Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. (NYSE:MMC)

Mercer, owned by Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. (NYSE:MMC) since 1937, is the world’s largest human resources consulting firm, with more than 20,500 employees. Marsh & McLennan earned $13.2 billion in revenue last year, 33% of which came from Mercer. The company’s high reputation among consultants, who voted for it more than any other HR consulting company, puts it on top of this list of the 10 biggest human resources (HR) consulting companies in the world.

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Disclosure: None