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New KPMG Associate Wants to Know What the “Deal” Is with Working Mothers

Yesterday we discussed the plethora of accounting firms that are pro-mom, according to Working Mothers. It seemed like a pretty simple idea – treat moms good = win; treat moms bad = Christ, what kind of hellhole firm are you running? Despite this elementary idea, there still is some questions out there:

GC,

On the subject of working mothers…what’s the deal with that? I’m a first year at KPMG and there is another first year who is already pregnant and taking maternity leave soon.

My question is, does she really get promoted on the same schedule as the rest of us? I get the importance of allowing some flexibility for working moms but does it make any sense to treat someone the same as the rest of us when it comes to raises and promotions when they’ve missed out on all the work? I’d love to hear what other readers have experience with this.

Thanks,

KPMG First Year

Well, the “deal” with working mothers is that not having policies that allow them to pursue a career and having a family is what I like to call “doing shitty business.” As to your specific question, the details aren’t clear. It’s not as if she will be on maternity leave for 6 months. KPMG offers up to 9 weeks of paid maternity leave, according to the firm’s profile on WM. That means that there are 43 other weeks (that assumes no PTO, obv) that she will be working. That doesn’t really qualify as “miss[ing] out on all the work” as you put it.

Those who are evaluating her performance should have a pretty good idea whether or not she’s capable of being promoted. Besides, it’s a jump from A1 to A2, not exactly a huge change in responsibilities or expectations. Furthermore, your raise from A1 to A2 isn’t going to be anything to write home about so getting worked up about whether or not she’s getting the same 11% bump as you isn’t worth it.

PwC Provides Background, Q&A in Response to Reports on Shanghai Associate’s Death

It’s been just over two weeks since the death of Angela Pan, an audit associate in PwC’s Shanghai office. One report of her death have quoted doctors stating that “Based on her symptoms and her low white blood cell count, it’s reasonable to conclude that overwork led to a weakened immune system, which makes her more vulnerable to infections.” It was also reported she told a friend she was working 18-hour days and about 120 hours a week prior to her sickness and death. However, Shanghaiist (yes, that’s the Gothamist for Shanghai) published a portion of a statement from PwC that stated that Angela died from viral encephalitis not acute cerebral meningitis as had been reported. An internal email from PwC in China found its way into our inbox late last week and it seems to echo the press release and provides other details.

[Ed. note: the second paragraph included HR and press contacts for those needing them so I’ve omitted those here. It did state that the information should only “be communicated verbally.”]

The date on the email was April 20th and the Shanghaiist article is dated April 15th, so whether this communiqué provides additional details, it isn’t entirely clear. The most confusing statement for me in this email is “as a sign of respect to Angela and her family, we have made a decision not to clarify the misreporting in the media at this time.” Seems to me that the respectful thing would be to correct the “misrepresented” facts if they are in fact correct. Of course this is happening in China where we can only assume what qualifies as a “respectful” action might differ from what is respectful in the U.S. Regardless, it’s terribly unfortunate that a young woman’s death had to serve as a reminder for everyone to take a closer look at their own health and behavior, as well as how culture and working environment may cause some to feel pressure to be at work when they shouldn’t.