Last week, we reported that PwC was cutting staff in creative and marketing based on info we received from a tipster. Since that post, Wall Street Journal ran a story of their own and more information has come in across our wire from multiple people inside PwC. We have also been looped into some drama related to the creative department but we’ll cover that in another article because it’s a lot (codeword: Verizon).
In the meantime, let’s cover these couple of items. First, we received a copy of the letter sent from Firmwide Talent Acquisition & Development Leader Margaret Burke to all US Talent Acquisition last week. We’ve cut the last paragraph out as it’s mainly logistic stuff about the transition:
[Talent Team],
We’ve all seen how quickly technology continues to evolve, and how it’s reshaping the way we work. As part of our ongoing transformation, we’re introducing new tools and processes that help us focus more on high-value, strategic work while improving the experience for our candidates, stakeholders and teams.
One are we’ve received is interview scheduling, a process that has historically involved manual coordination and multiple hand-offs. Our new, technology-enabled interview Scheduling Hub will simplify scheduling, reduce friction, and allow interviews to be confirmed more quickly and accurately.
We also want to acknowledge that progress often brings change–and that change can have real impacts on people. As you heard from Tim Grady, Business Services is on a long-term transformation journey, Modernizing how we work, aligning more closely with changing firm needs and the evolution of our Lines of Service, and improving efficiency and sustainability. While the overarching goal of that journey is transformation and reinvestment, we made the difficult decision to move forward with a workforce reduction, which impacted some of our colleagues on the Interview Scheduling team. We’re deeply grateful for their contributions and for the foundation they helped build that allows us to take this next step forward.
Never a good thing when they use the word transformation that many times in one email.
Then we received this from another tipster today:
Greater reductions on headcounts expected at PwC. No other details on how many, when, and what departments but definite yes. Discussions are largely about internal teams like talent acquisition. Premise is “optimizing roles in wake of changing tools” (a.k.a. AI)
We’ve received intel from other sources about talent layoffs, we all can assume this will be the next area cut.
Our tipster adds:
Current roadmap of “transformation” as they are calling it is within the next 24 months. Will be relying heavily on contractors and third party labor to fill business needs. Significantly limiting recruiting efforts in this timeframe.
There it is again, that scary word.
Gird your loins, PwCers. Things are about to get rough.
As always, tipsters are encouraged to reach out via email or text with any info. Tipsters are always anonymous and greatly appreciated.
Stick a fork in it – accounting is done. We’re all just sales people now.
Blah blah blah stick a fork…
PWC has every right to lay off underperforming workers and purge jobs that add no value to the firm. The high-performers at PWC should not have to subsidize the fat.
This one isn’t considering performance. Cuts will be solely based on transformation efforts and will not consider performance at all. Maybe try being less insensitive when you don’t know what you are talking about.
The problem is those “transformation” efforts have gone on for 10 years now. I hate that term.
The sad part, it isn’t low performers being cut. It is anyone and everyone.
This is such a bad email in the way that is structured. They talk about the layoffs at the end and frontload the email with the introduction of scheduling tools
Something’s not right when the firms are doing layoffs before busy season…