‘Billable hours’ culture at services firms criticised by study

The culture of optimising ‘billable hours’ to secure career progression at professional services firms has led to junior employees becoming overworked, an academic study has argued.

Charging clients by the hour is common practice in the accountancy, consultancy and legal industries. But pressure to maximise the number of hours billed to clients has intensified during the recession.

The use of this type of ‘financialization’ as an employee control strategy was explored by André Spicer of Warwick Business School and Johan Alvehus from Lund University in Sweden.

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