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Layoff Watch ’20: Some KPMG IT Folks Were Told Their Services Are No Longer Needed

Posted on by Jason Bramwell

[Updated on June 23 with additional information.]

Another person who will be leaving KPMG involuntarily told us on Tuesday evening that Monday’s layoffs affected more than 350 people in the Digital Nexus group.

Fourteen people had over 25 years, I personally have been here for 19.

The 350 number came from my manager and several others who saw the list of terminated employees. I am one of four techs in our office.  Myself and one other were let go, effective July 5. Since KPMG will be closed next week for a summer vacation, essentially this Friday is our last day.

We haven’t been able to confirm that total number of people laid off yet with KPMG.

This person said the layoffs “came out of nowhere” and “totally blindsided” their manager and their manager’s manager.

We have been coming in every day since the COVID lockdown as we were deemed “essential employees” and were handling break/fix problems for the whole country. 2 of the 4 techs in my office have been let go. The positions range top to bottom, Directors down to associates.

There was a conference call with Dan Doherty [national managing partner, digital business transformation], stating that there would be personnel changes due to the rampup of Mexico and India. Shortly afterword, emails starting coming out to affected employees. It was expected that it would be easily off-shored positions like developers, but it came out of nowhere for people like myself that do hands-on repairs and other tasks that simply cannot be done elsewhere.

[Updated on Monday evening with additional comments.]

Here’s a not-so-fun tip that was sent to us a little while ago about some job cuts happening at KPMG today:

KPMG laying off a large number of people in its IT group (Digital Nexus) today. Part of an outsourcing program to move jobs to Mexico and India.

Let me interrupt our tipster for a moment. I honestly had no idea what KPMG Digital Nexus is so I looked it up. This is from a KPMG Campus brochure on business support services from July 2019:

KPMG Digital Nexus focuses on five major objectives: improve the operating performance of IT, accelerate the internal and market deployment of leading digital technologies, develop and implement a data strategy, strengthen our security controls to protect our information and data, and establish a new future-ready IT operating model for the firm.

OK? OK. Back to our tipster …

I’m one of the impacted employees. I don’t know how many are targeted, but all are supposed to be notified by email by COB today, and will be meeting with an HR rep between today and Friday.

I know of at least three in my group alone.

The layoffs are part of the “Demand Management Transformation” that is part of a larger effort to reduce the growth of IT spend. I did know that layoffs were coming due to this program. The firm was pretty transparent about that, but I had been told that our jobs were pretty safe as we were woefully undersized.

Our source said they believe the job cuts are firm-wide and added:

All new hires had to come from the outsourcing centers in Mexico & India, which are staffed by a 3rd party recruiting firm.

A KPMG spokesperson confirmed the job cuts this afternoon and sent us the following statement:

“We’ve had a long-standing and multiyear effort underway to transform certain business enablement areas of our firm to ensure we have the right skills and capabilities in the right positions. We started this transformation — which includes a realignment of our resources — nearly two years ago. These long-planned actions are unrelated to COVID-19 or the economy.”

That’s all we know for now. If you too have been told to hit the bricks, or know any additional information about the job cuts, get in touch with us using the contact info below.

[UPDATE] Heard from another person Monday evening who also was a casualty of the job cuts at KPMG yesterday. They reiterated what the other person told us this afternoon, that “we were told for months our group was safe as we are severely understaffed.”

This person added:

We all work remotely from different parts of the country. I’m not sure how many firmwide were let go. But our group has always been told we were safe from 2 levels above us, as we are severely understaffed already. My boss was not even aware I was being laid off. On Friday, we were told that the highest level manager (so 4 levels above me – actually a VP) was let go. We were told at that time by the next level manager below him that layoffs were starting at the highest levels and would not get down to our level.

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What Are People Saying About Phil Mickelson’s 1st KPMG Masters Victory?

Phil Mickelson earned his third green jacket and Masters championship this weekend, his first major win since striking a sponsorship with KPMG’s hat department.

I took to the online streets of Twitter to see what people were saying about Phil’s win for the KPMG Kamp.

I’ll start off with the legal…

@seanmg: Everytime I looked at Phil Mickelson today I saw that KPMG hat and all I could think of was illegal tax shelters.


…the official…

@KPMG: Phil Mickelson wins his third career Masters title wearing his KPMG cap! http://www.pgatour.com/

@KPMGRecruitment: Congratulations to KPMG-sponsored Phil Mickelson – US Masters Golf Champion 2010!

@RandyWGilbert: Being both a lefty and a KPMG’er it was great to see Phil slip on yet another Green Jacket! http://bit.ly/bx5Oq5

…to the sarcastic…
@chris_reynolds: I felt like the KPMG hat really put Phil over the top.

@synergytim: Does KPMG sponsor Phil Mickelson because of his initials?

…to the giddy excited…

@rychlewc: And Phil wins it! Go KPMG!

@CaseyCope: Oh Phil. You’re our finest investment ever. We’re proud of you, buddy! #KPMG

@Csolo_wvu_reds: Congrats to Phil Mickelson, the people’s champ, straight reppin KPMG all day…

…to the utterly confused.

@milktrader: What does KPMG on Phil’s hat stand for? A sports drink?

@bthogan80: @darrenrovell1 any idea what KPMG pays for phil’s hat?

@andrea_eagleman: Way to go, Phil. Side note – KPMG reallllly needs an updated logo.

What are your thoughts on Phil’s win for KPMG? Discuss.

Comp Watch ’10: KPMG Town Hall Results in More Questions Than Answers

After hearing that KPMG was following suit with a mid-year compensation surprise, we’ve now been tipped that any hope you had of seeing a little extra moolah has been crushed:

Last night was KPMG’s New York Office (NYO) townhall meeting. During this meeting, close to 2,000 NYO employees of the firm gathered in a hotel in Time Square to listen to a series of presentations from the CEO, COO and Office Managing Partner (OMP). During this four hour presentation, they covered an array of topics, including: compensation and benefits, technology, etc.

Depsite hearing that the firm will be allowing staff (associates and senior associates) have KPMG email access on their iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phones, no further details were provided about what they will be paying for, if anything.

They also announced that they were keeping up with the average regarding compensation, but made it a point to mention that with every average, someone must be below the average, hinting that we were that someone. After finding out that there will be no mid-year bonsues or raises, some left the meeting rather disappointed… at least there was free booze and food (like any other normal KPMG event).

But wait! This sounded a little weird to us since our sources on the original story were solid, so we checked in with another source who told us the message was simply non-committal, “They didn’t really confirm/deny what was going to happen with the mid-year stuff.”

So all this “Yes? No? Maybe so,” probably isn’t so helpful but that’s where things appear to stand.

Back to our original tipster, who is now hearing talk of next fall’s associates receiving a boost in their starting salaries:

Later that evening, however, many of the recent hires (new associates in 2010) were beginning to hear that the 2011 new hires (for next year) were already receiveing salary adjustments (upwards into the $60,000’s), in addition to their already higher starting salaries and sign-on bonuses.

So my question is: Does KPMG plan on compensating the new associates (that started in 2010) that did not receive a sign-on bonus this year, or perhaps have any plans to bring their salary closer towards the industry average?

Starting salaries have been consistently rising over the years and with increased competition among the firms for the best recruits, you can expect that to continue. Whether that results in adjustments for KPMG’s latest class of new associates remains to be seen, since a mid-year surprise is still uncertain. We should say, however, expecting more money after being on the job for 2-3 months is a little presumptuous. We understand the frustration but, seriously? You can barely open Excel at this point.

As you hear more regarding the mid-year compensation (or lack thereof) email us with the scoop.

Compensation Watch ’11: KPMG Transactions and Restructuring Services May Get Some Extra Love

From the mailbag:

Thought y’all might be interested in hearing about a practice specific mid-year salary adjustment announced today [Monday]. Transactions and Restructuring (aka Transaction Services/TS; 750 people nationwide) had a national update call today during which, the partner in charge, Dan Tiemann [a Top 25 Consultant, no less], announced that he is very close to having firm leadership approve a mid-year comp adjustment for up to 5% for all members of the practice.

He mentioned that he is aware of the PwC iPad program and the Deloitte midyear raises and that it’s time that KPMG (well, at least the T&R practice) did something as well. This is in addition to the staff bonus program announced before xmas, and will be in addition to merit raises/incentive comp later this year

He said he’s well aware that somebody who wants to leave for a salary bump (as myself and many of my colleagues are considering) will not be deterred by a paltry 5%, but that he thinks the practice needed to do something to “show appreciation” for those who have sacrificed weekends and vacations during the past few months.

As our tipster notes, this is not yet approved by the brass but notes that “the recent barrage of defections” may have been a motivating factor. Also, our source doubted that anything like this would occur for large practices like audit or tax, “there is hope for the rest of advisory or other specialty practices.” If you hear any hopefulness for your practice – advisory, speciality or otherwise – email us.