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Layoff Watch ’20: What’s This About Grant Thornton ‘Optimizing’ Some People?

We were told the other day that Grant Thornton recently got rid of some GTers who were not meeting their utilization goals. ’Tis the season for cutting loose low performers, regardless of a deadly pandemic and a shitty economy.

Here’s the tip we got:

They’re “optimizing” people at GT US in certain departments.

Digital transformation was one of them. Public sector is getting rid of people too.

I’ve seen managers to MDs be optimized.

The other tidbit this person told us is that “I’ve heard from partners that promotions may be deferred… in consideration right now.”

Putting promotions on the backburner is currently happening at a lot of firms. Anyway, back to the optimizing at the PRofC. Somebody on Reddit posted a week or so ago that about 50 people from Grant Thornton were told to look for work elsewhere. We haven’t been able to confirm yet whether it actually was 50.

A now-former GTer took to Fishbowl last week to complain about his/her lack of utilization and has some regrets:

OP made it seem like he/she worked in advisory and that associates, senior associates, and managers were let go “because of lack of projects honestly, not something employees can control.” OP also said those let go didn’t get a severance.

GT isn’t the first firm since this pandemic started to get rid of its weakest links and it won’t be the last. There are rumors floating around that EY is going to start a low-performer purge once July 1 rolls around, and we’ve heard the same thing is going to happen relatively soon at Deloitte.

It doesn’t matter if these GTers weren’t considered rock stars, it still sucks when people lose their jobs, especially now. We hope everyone lands back on their feet soon. And hey, we got something that might help you.