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The annals of mismanaged restructurings are filled with classic episodes made worse by technology. Workers have suffered mass layoffs by Tannoy, voicemail, text messages and Zoom. Now PwC’s UK arm has explored new territory with an attempt to orchestrate a round of “silent layoffs” via email.
He The big four companies The attempt to silence the dismissals of colleagues participating in a “selective voluntary dismissal” turned out to be far from silent. It may not even be that new. The most successful attempts to prevent departing workers from spreading the word about their dismissal are, by definition, difficult to detect.
PwC’s mistake appears to be that it told those leaving not to mention that they had accepted an agreement to leave, and then advised them how to say their goodbyes. For example: “After recent conversations with my [relationship leader], I have made the decision to leave PwC. It hasn’t been an easy decision for me, but now that I’ve made it, I’m excited about what the future holds and the new opportunities on the horizon. “I really enjoyed my time at PwC and the opportunity to work with such talented colleagues.”
There is no quicker way to ensure that corporate secrets are revealed than to insist that they remain secret. The edict sent by email “does not [to] refer to the voluntary severance offer or the circumstances of the departure” became the FT’s second most-read story last weekend. Someone on PwC’s HR team may now feel less “excited about what the future holds.”
Of the possible explanations, HR critics were quick to point to the malice or incompetence of personnel managers who had become desperate to oust surplus staff while avoiding panic or a rush to obtain a limited amount of severance payments.
However, most companies go through periodic restructuring. Sometimes because they have to reverse a mismanaged expansion, but often because fluctuating demand has left the right people in the wrong place.
PwC may simply be out of practice. Professional services firms are used to hiring thousands and letting high levels of attrition do the layoffs for them. Young auditors and consultants complete short stints in the Big Four (long enough to pass their professional exams or add the logo to their LinkedIn profile) and then move on to the next professional challenge.
But a slowdown in demand has led to cuts and headlines. Deloitte, using the same word as PwC, launched a “targeted” restructuring last year which came under fire for planning to cut 150 junior consulting positions, restricting the careers of staff who had joined only a year or two earlier. McKinsey, master of the diplomatic “up or out” approach to ousting employees, has had to take a harder ax to poor performers. They are now, euphemistically, “advised to leave”.
White-collar rejects occasionally make noise, which may also explain PwC’s attempt to silence those who will soon be laid off. A PwC trainee auditor who failed his audit exams in 2016 went viral with his poor judgment outgoing email explosionexplaining: “I haven’t really enjoyed [my] “Time at PwC is largely related to exam stress and a low boredom threshold.”
The most charitable interpretation is that the PwC email was the product of an overzealous effort by a human resources official to prepare a mass response to genuine individual queries about how to delicately manage what can be an uncomfortable office experience.
Whatever the explanation, the redundancy dictum was itself redundant. In my experience, most people who choose to accept a reward to quit smoking don’t brag or complain about it. There’s no need. Most of your colleagues know what has happened through office rumors, which are invariably more efficient and accurate than most intra-company communications mediated by HR.
If the Gen Z trend of “stop smoking out loud”Through TikTok and other social networks remains to be seen. But those who leave dissatisfied mostly recognize that there is no point in publicly complaining, lest it upset a potential future boss or client. The happy ones want to move on and use their payment as a springboard to a better or different path. For both groups, presenting themselves as the dumper rather than the dumpee fits the narrative of their next episode.
However, please, if you are going to cut and paste the PwC script, leave out the part about pursuing “new opportunities on the horizon.” Save the clichés for when you finally make it and then openly brag that getting fired by a Big Four accounting firm was “the best thing that ever happened to you.”