KPMG International is bracing for the economic downturn but working diligently to avoid job cuts. The big four accounting firm’s London office has offered 11,000 British workers the option of moving to a four-day workweek or taking a sabbatical with reduced pay.
Employees have two options: take one day off a week – at a 20 percent pay cut – or a 4- to 12-week sabbatical and still receive 30 percent of their pay, benefits, and the assurance they can come back as the economy recovers. The offerings are accepted on a voluntary basis, but so far, more than 80 percent of its partners applied. The deadline for applying for either option is February 6th.
KPMG’s competitors – Deloitte & Touche, Grant Thornton, and PKF – have recently announced plans to cut hundreds of jobs in expectation of slower revenue growth this year.
By offering sabbaticals and shortened work weeks, KPMG hopes to avoid the situation it found itself in during the last economic downturn. “Experience has shown that when companies make redundancies and [then] the upturn eventually arrives they have lost a lot of talent and really good people through redundancies. That is something that we want to avoid,” a company spokesman said in a UK-based benefits publication. “We want to keep our best talent. This a way of enabling us hopefully to hold on to our people and keep all that talent at KPMG.”
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[...] home; a television reporter recently ask for her work arrangement to be altered – and got it; and KPMG offered a sabbatical program just last [...]