A wee bit of stumbling about on the Internet yielded Firm Spy. In its own words:
Australasian professionals need an outlet to share the real news — and in so doing, to hold their industries and employers to account. Our mission is simple: to give Australian lawyers, bankers, accountants and consultants a voice and allow them to comment truthfully on office and industry politics without fear of committing a Career Limiting Move. Speak freely. Be heard. Not known.
Here’s a sample about one of our other favourite firms: Deloitte:
…it is not fair that the accounting community is unaware that Deloitte has reduced its workforce considerably in recent months. Your site has reported the redundancies at the other major accounting firms, though you have not yet mentioned the happenings here. A broad recruitment freeze is in place and the partners, more than at any time in my five years here, are ‘managing’ people out of the firm. Performance reviews are still continuing and it is expected many more will consequently lose their jobs…
Or how about this regarding PWC:
According to press reports, PwC has asked most staff to take three weeks’ unpaid leave, ‘effectively equivalent to a 6 per cent pay cut over the course of a year.’ This from the same Big4 accounting firm that mercilessly wielded the sack-axe both before, and after, the Christmas break. Not a festive bunch!
A PwC spy sent us the following scathing opinion:“I am personally baffled that it is necessary to enforce a scheme of unpaid leave. They [the partners] have already made dozens of my former workmates (and dear friends) redundant. Some of my sacked colleagues are still out of work. Yes, they are on Centrelink! Where’s the love?”Where is the love? To add insult to injury, PwC director of human capital (hah) Sharon Bell confirmed that discretionary bonuses would still be paid:we are going to continue to promote people across the board and we are going to continue to pay out bonuses across the board.Do you think discretionary bonuses should be shelved in favour of lifting a forced, unpaid leave-of-absence scheme?
Mark Phillippoussis is apparently not the only half-wit who blew all his cash when times were better. The Firm Spy has been informed that much like the Poo, who begrudgingly sold his Hummer to repay debts, the KPMG partnership has also been forced to take extraordinary measures to stop the rot.
…all workers, partners included, have been asked to vote in two weeks on a scheme designed to save jobs. The options are -
- agree to take a 20% pay cut in exchange for a 4-day working week;
- agree to take a sabbatical of up to 3 months on 30% pay
- or do nothing
It is a ‘vote’ in the sense that if more than 70% don’t vote in favour of it, there will be no mandate to implement it. However, if a mandate is given, there will not be a broad implementation of it, but rather a new discretion in the partners to implement it on an ad hoc basis. If no mandate is given, it is speculated that the first to be sacked (if required) will be those who did not vote in favour of it.
It would wildly unfair to leave Ernst & Young out of the equation:
We made a big public cut earlier in the year but since then there have been many other departures which have not been reported. The people I have spoken to who know people in other areas that have left have said these departures were mostly involuntary, despite the firm telling us differently. I can say that in my own group, we have also had a few who have gone in suspicious circumstances… A lot of my co-workers are now worried that if these gradual job losses continue, we might all go too.
Although the pieces tend to be written in a mocking tone, it can’t hide the way in which the Big 4 are handling reductions in force (RIF.) The answer seems to be: as quietly and cack handedly as possible. Surely employees deserve more transparency from the supposed cream of the professional firms? If this is indicative of other regions then what’s happening in Europe?
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