Q&A for applicants

We shape change in organizations with clients who reeeally mean it. For this reason we work primarily on long-term projects that combine strategic top management consulting with change support. In addition to change consulting, we also provide change communication, new work architecture and design, change and learning software and training.

Differences to traditional management consultancies (excerpt):

The most renowned consultancies primarily focus on technical and strategic consulting. Change management, if at all addressed, is a significantly secondary concern that does not truly align with their own corporate culture. Their projects typically last several weeks or 3 to 6 months. The implementation of their often excellent concepts usually remains largely in the hands of the clients themselves. In contrast, we...
… not only understand on a rational level that change is crucial for success, but also live and breathe it—integrating it with technically and strategically high-quality work and a holistic perspective.
... involve our clients intensively in our professional-strategic consulting work, instead of essentially doing the work for them
... stay with clients until something has changed in their hearts and minds, usually 1.5 to 5 years
Differences to other change consultancies (excerpt):
Our corporate culture lives and breathes change in a very transformational way. Strangely enough, this is rather unusual, but the cobbler often has the worst shoes
Most change consulting firms operate as networks. Consultants are primarily freelancers who rarely collaborate and bring with them disparate methodologies and varying quality. Assembling an excellent consulting and change support team from this setup is challenging. The foundational concept of transformational change requires closeness, long-term commitment, shared important goals, and thus does not align well with a network structure characterized by distance, diverse interests, and a systemic tendency to function more as a "heap" than a cohesive team or genuine community.
We live a people model in which people are trained intensively over many years and developed both professionally and personally. Most change consultancies opportunistically use freelancers for projects who are not "home-grown", which causes them to reduce the investment in their training and development
We are not just a change consultancy, but the first fully integrated change company, also offering non-consulting services, particularly in the areas of change communication, New Work architecture, change and learning software, as well as training

Our culture is characterized by transformationality. This is based on longevity, mutual inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individual engagement, appreciation, leading by example, trust, closeness and a shared purpose. The opposite is a transactional exchange relationship to maximize one's own benefit to the detriment of the other. All Timmer people strive for joint professional and personal development. We are a learning community with a commitment to excellence and live values that match this - as best we can. For example, we give each other direct feedback on the basis of appreciation.

Dear future Timmermann team member,

Timmermann Group is indeed a very special organization! :) What awaits you as an employee here is remarkable in many ways and might sometimes seem unusual. Therefore, it's important for us to give you an insight:

In the spirit of diversity, we are a diverse team that navigates with respect, mindfulness, and directness towards each other. This can indeed feel peculiar at first, as we truly value being noticed and addressed. Of course, maintaining a balance of respect and directness isn't always seamless. We're human too, and that's okay.

However, our image also attracts people who expect certain facets of working with us - for example, intensive cooperation that shows how seriously we take each employee's needs, skills and character. The fact that this can also be exhausting because it can “get to the substance” is not taken into account here and there. We believe that personal development leads out of the comfort zone. This may not be as familiar to some people (as they may think) and sometimes triggers reactions that we can no longer influence because they don't happen in contact with each other.

We're eager to create something together. And yes, we work intensively. However, the stereotype of workaholics in the consulting industry doesn't apply to us. We don't even come close to 60-80 hours per week that are common in other leading consulting firms. Our consultants, who are not part of the leadership team (the latter simply deciding what they feel is right), work 42 hours per week full-time (less for part-time colleagues). This is much less than some stereotypes and claims suggest. Additionally, we provide compensatory time for overtime and flexibility if you need to work on a day you normally wouldn't. One of the ways we differ from other companies is primarily in the content of our workdays. We include a variety of activities in our total work time that aren't typically counted elsewhere:

If you treat yourself to regular coaching, this is just as much a part of your working time as developing a concept for a client
In addition, other Timmerpeople are on hand if you would like mentoring - and are happy to do this at 3 p.m. during a walk
“Working” time suddenly takes on a different meaning. After all, working on yourself and developing yourself personally is just as time-consuming and intensive as moderating a workshop or writing a comprehensive proposal.

At the same time, there are of course opportunities in some companies to work even less or at a slower pace and it still counts as full-time. It's always a question of the overall package of working conditions, culture, sense of purpose, interestingness of the tasks, learning opportunities, etc.. And ours is attractive to many.

Any questions, ideas or concerns? Keep them coming! Just give us a call or send us an e-mail. You'll find that we at Timmermann are people with whom you can and should think out loud - if something bothers or irritates you, just as much as if something amazes, delights or surprises you. Because for us, enriching cooperation at work requires the courage to take responsibility - something we encourage everyone at Timmermann to do. This can be polarizing, but it really helps us all move forward - and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

We work in project structures similar to a traditional management consultancy. However, as our projects are designed for the longer term, we usually work on 1 to 3 projects/assignments in parallel. As a result, we are on the road in different places and also more frequently than in traditional consultancies in the Timmermann office in Munich.

There we prepare events at the client's premises or deal with internal subjects. Typical tasks that each of us does frequently are, for example:

Developing “scripts” for training courses and workshops
Conducting trainings and workshops
Joint problem-solving with the Timmermann project team and/or with the client
Developing a concept and capturing it on PowerPoint slides
Conducting feedback discussions
Lunch together at Timmerland

In most projects, there are five roles occupied: 

Partner
Project leader 
Expert (e.g. for change communication or new work architecture)
Consultant
Junior Consultant
Each role in the project team is associated with specific tasks. At the same time, all team members work together intensively with a lot of joint problem solving, exchange and feedback.

Our 'HQ' is the Timmermann office in Munich. 

Nevertheless, we attach great importance to promoting flexibility for our Timmer people. For this reason, we follow a hybrid working concept, which makes it possible to work partly from home or even have your main residence in a city other than Munich. This allows you to work remotely and occasionally be on site in Munich or, if necessary, at the client's premises. This option can be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

We are on site with our clients when we can best help them, which is usually around 1-2 days per week.

Our clients are primarily located in German-speaking countries, but we often work in an international context and also realize projects in unusual countries. The project language is therefore English as well as German.

In our projects, there is usually a project team on the client side with whom we work particularly closely. We train its members in change topics, support them in their personal development (learn from them ourselves) and develop concepts and solutions together. To this end, we regularly meet with our clients on site or at special conference and training venues and exchange information in between via teams, telephone and e-mail. Some clients also come to our Timmermann office from time to time to take advantage of the atmosphere and excellent working conditions.

As our projects are designed for the long term, each consultant usually works on 2-3 projects in parallel.

Since we support all individuals within an organization in their personal change, we typically work with all levels of hierarchy. However, our collaboration is particularly intensive with the client project team and senior management, as well as with agile teams. The intensity of contact typically varies depending on our role:

The partner works directly with the top management 
The project leader works with middle and senior management 
The (senior) consultants work with middle management and employees
The junior consultants work with employees and sometimes with middle management

We successfully collaborate with companies across various industries. Our main focuses are in the financial services, technology, public sector organizations, as well as pharmaceuticals & chemicals industries.

For ethical reasons, we do not work with the following industries/clients: arms, animal industry, tobacco, alcohol, oil & gas, coal, nuclear power, dictatorships/authoritarian regimes.