But the picture is much less rosy for grads in PwC’s Melbourne office. Said one anoymous tipster:
10 grads at pricewaterhousecoopers made redundant… three months after accepting the job (and probably knocking back other jobs in the process)
Said another:
PwC Melbourne have told some its grads that ’we need some of you to volunteer to move to other offices. If no one volunteers, we will have to let some of you go.’ Firing grads, particularly when many of them would have turned down other Big Four offers, is pretty low.
Pretty low indeed. We sent the following edited email to the firm’s PR contact, including in it another more detailed anonymous tip-off:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Fwd: RE: Rumours We Have Heard
Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:37:49 -0400
From: <news@firmspy.com>
To: <@au.pwc.com>
Cc: <@au.pwc.com>Morning,
We’ve heard rumours from several sources over the weekend that a group of PwC grads have been asked to move interstate in order to keep their jobs. Here is an example of one tip off we have received:
“The Melbourne corporate tax team of PwC is losing so much money fast that they are sending 10 of their 16 grads who started 3 months ago to either Brisbane, Sydney or Perth on a 3 year secondment just to stem the bleeding and get rid of them. They also extended all their probations and have said they will terminate them if they don’t get enough take up of the offer.”
What is the deal here? What is the name of the graduate recruitment partner who so vastly overestimated the number of graduates the Melb corporate tax team would require? What sort of performance counselling is given to employees at the top of the food-chain who make these kinds of farcical mistakes that so damage the lives of junior staffers?
Regards,
FS
In response, we received the following bullish comments from a PwC spokesperson yesterday afternoon:
PwC’s Graduate Intake Program forms part of our long term talent development and growth strategy. It offers graduates access to a range of experiences in different locations, across all industries, encouraging them to develop their skills and build relationships with a variety of clients, colleagues and Partners. We have recently offered 10 Melbourne graduates 2-3 year secondments based in PwC’s Sydney, Perth and Brisbane offices. It is a great opportunity for these graduates to take their career forward and work in key areas of the firm across Australia.
An opportunity… or a cruel ultimatum? We would suggest the grads consider their legal options if it is the latter. Particular regard should be had to individual employment contracts and the circumstances under which grads accepted their offers. We had a look at the firm’s Careers FAQ section and found the following:
Can I apply for a role not in my local state?
Yes. However, applicants may only apply to one advertised role per campaign. You will be given the option to select two preference areas as well as office locations.
So, presumably the relevant grads applied for, and accepted, a role in Melbourne on a one-year contract. If the firm:
- made a representation to the grads that they would work in Melbourne for their graduate year; and
- the grads relied on that representation in accepting the PwC graduate employment offer; and
- the firm made that representation knowing it to be false, or made it honestly and later resiled from it; and
- the relevant grads suffer the “detriment” of having to relocate to another state, away from family, spouses etc
… is there enough for a Walton Stores estoppel? We think the answer probably lies in point 3 and whether, at the time of making the representation to grads that they would work in Melbourne (assuming it did so), the firm “knew” it would only be for a few months, before asking the grads to relocate. Perhaps there was a big transaction, which required low-level grunt work and ended a few months after the grads commenced. The firm might have thought there would be no real harm in “offering” a secondment once that hypothetical transaction was completed.
You’ll recall in the Walton Stores case that Mason CJ and Wilson J held:
the creation or encouragement by the party estopped in the other party of an assumption that a contract will come into existence or a promise will be performed and that the other party relied on that assumption to his detriment to the knowledge of the first party.
Did the PwC partner responsible for the incredulously overinflated Melbourne tax graduate intake know that soon after their commencement at the firm, many of the grads would either be forced to move interstate or leave the firm?
Send the Firm Spy your news and views!
Loading...
)
Good point about where is the counselling for the senior people who make the decision to hire too many grads? These grads will be feeling like their lives are ending. At least they are not being terminated during probation for performance like certain other Big 4′s during the GFC where they had no hope of getting a reference….
Walton Stores? You’re making things a little hard for yourself aren’t you. Try misleading and deceptive conduct under the TPA. Although that would assume all the elements are there; could be rather difficult if the employment contracts stipulate PwC may direct employees to work in any location nationally.
@ TPA Guru
PwC isn’t a company, so the TPA is irrelevant. You’ve also stated the reasons why an estoppel-type argument would be the most appropriate here; namely that a contractual term might allow involuntary secondment. In those circumstances, an equitable suit would be the most appropriate course, for example equitable estoppel. I am fascinated how often employers get away with this sort of behaviour. I suggest the ten affected grads follow firmspy’s advice and look at the equitable remedies available to them
This is a horrible and low act by the PwC partnership and quite likely an equitable wrong. What if one of the grads has to care for an ailing or elderly parent? What if they have kids at school? Is the whole family required to relocate for 3 years? Will PwC pay those relocation costs?
TPA??? – Sch 2 (section 31) of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 has been incorporated into all State Fair Trading legislation (as opposed to the TPA) and specifically relates to misrepresentations relating to employment. It also doesn’t matter whether PwC is a company or not.
Give me a break… I would have killed for one of these secondments a few years ago. These grads need to remember that they are grads. Starting out at the bottom of the rung and therefore easily disposable. If it’s a true secondment, and not mutton dressed as lamb, then PwC should be covering relocation and some accomodation costs… Let’s not forget you will get LAFHA and the benefit of working in another firm with exposure to other clients.
How about you be thankful you have a job in a good firm? Keep your mouth shut and go on your secondment.
This fact that there is outrage is disgraceful.
What is wrong with you people?
Again – PwC partners trying to protect the own salaries before looking at the long term future of the firm or their employees. PwC forget that these grads will likely be working for a firm that they will be trying to sell services to in the not to distant future. I think this sums up the direction PwC is going.
I completely agree! You have to be mobile and accept the fact that you have to move to where the opportunities are. Plus, with LAFHA you are away lafhing!!!
Arctic Phoenix – surely this PwC spin doctors? Read and rate… Good to see PwC are reading firmspy. Hopefully their actions are more than just forum responses.
Errrrr …. with the exception of Arctic Phoenix, I hope you are all being ironic. PwC isn’t a charity. Maybe the partners are running the firm for their own benefit. So what, it’s their firm. In the long term (or maybe in the medium term) this might mean that PwC misses out on quality graduates from Victoria. Maybe that will bring PwC to its knees and the partners will look back on the decision reported above as the final nail in the coffin of a once great firm. Somehow I doubt it.
I’ve no sympathy whatsoever for the grads*. (I don’t have any sympathy for PwC either.) What’s wrong with a secondment within Australia, it’s pretty safe and Sydney and Brisbane are only an hour or so away? It’s hardly Almaty or Djakarta. And if you don’t want to go, PwC will have given you something very useful that you can use to get a job somewhere else – i.e., your CV can now trumpet the fact that you had a job at PwC. Lots of employers – esp mid sized accounting firms – will find this pretty compelling (especially when combined with the fact that PwC will presumably have selected from the upper quartile of grads in any event).
And as for “these grads will be feeling like their life is ending”. They may well be feeling this way. But that’s precisely the point. They are feeling this way because they have no sense of persepctive because they are children. None of them have a career. They have not made any decisions about their future in employment that cannot be undone. The chances that in 20 years time some of them will look back on this as the best thing that ever happened to them are far higher than the chances that this opportunity will prove to be the death of all of their hopes and dreams. In practice neither of these eventualities are likely to transpire. It’s a job. It’s a move to another Australian city, which move is only mandatory for a short period of time, where they will meet new (but safe, Australian) people (drawn from the same demographic) who they will date, have intercourse with, break up with and eventually marry. Not necessarily in that order.
Amazed describes this as “a horrible and low act by the PwC partnership”. At the risk of repeating a jibe I’ve used elsewhere when posting on FirmSpy, please would you ask your mother to turn on the filter on the family computer so that you cannot access websites with adult themes. As to whether this is “quite likely an equitable wrong”. You really went out on a limb there – is it or isn’t it ? Employment tribunals are notoriously employee friendly but even if they got really lunatic and accepted an argument based on estoppel, what is the appropriate measure of loss? Hard to imagine it would be anything other than the employee’s statutory notice period plus redundancy terms. Which sounds like it’s on offer anyway if you don’t want to travel. As to “[w]hat if one of the grads has to care for an ailing or elderly parent? What if they have kids at school? Is the whole family required to relocate for 3 years? Will PwC pay those relocation costs?” The answers are (seriatim): (a) so f*cking what, not PwC’s problem. Send money and visit regularly or get a job somewhere else in Melbourne. Might be the best thing you ever do. Or it might not. Your future is your own, make of it what you will; (b) depends on earning dynamics of relationship with partner. If grad is only wage earner, then on a grad’s salary they will presumably be in state school. They have state schools in other states. If grad is not only wage earner and partner is paying school fees then grad will have to decide whether to take money in another state and make regular visits home (so no, whole family is not required to relocate, it’s all up for negotiation) or leave PwC and find new job in Melbourne. Decision for grad and partner. Not PwC’s problem.
And FS – the bit about the existence of “a big transaction, which required low-level grunt work and ended a few months after the grads commenced” is a new low. I know this is the internet, and consequently that real journalism shouldn’t be expected, but the only reason to include such rampant speculation is to encourage even more outlandishly naive posts from people like amazed.
* If I’m being honest this is in part because Melbourne’s always struck me as dullsville. Before you all get upset, Sydney is full of pretentious wankers, Brisbane is sweaty and boring and Perth – well, if you weren’t born there, don’t ever expect to fit in.
Phil Ateley, I started agreeing with you to a point – but then your rampant loneliness and clear inability to understand what being a good partner or good father means weeded you out – lonely man. Phil Ateley, our generation is coming and we demand compassionate and ethical management – and if you don’t give it to us, your industry is dead.
As for these grads, I suggest they make that really tough decision – knock back a top tier and go to a mid tier. You don’t get paid as much, but hey, you can read firm spy at 7pm and eat dinner with your girlfriend and play sport on weeknights, and even have some time to do what you love while your not at work. The problem with our generation is that we all know the answer, but because we are all so obsessed with how our resume reads on LinkedIn and how we appear to our peers, we say yes to PwC or Allens or Mallesons, instead of taking our own destiny in our own hands and telling those firms NO!
Why wait 5 years to change them from within, when we can start something ourselves? I think we know what we want but are perpetually too scared to take a risk because we are the first generation to be trained to AVOID RISK, as opposed to make our own destiny….
@ Phil Ateley
Really enjoy your thought-provoking work on this forum. Two comments in response – 1) we asked PwC about the performance counselling (if any) given to the person who overestimated the number of grads Melb tax would require by around 200%. We published the firm’s reply in full. We think 200%(approx) is alot. We assume those grads started in Feb/March, having accepted those offers at some point in 2010. Sure, business needs change, but by 200% … in three months? PwC could have advised some of the grads prior to commencing with the firm that their services were no longer required, paid them out, and given them some time to see whether the offers they knocked back were still on the table. In 2009, PwC paid grads $4000 to defer their start-date until 2010 – why weren’t 2011 grads given the same deal? No, in the circumstances, it certainly isn’t too much of a stretch to think something fishy is going on.
2) Re your “new-low” comment regarding our hypothetical about “low-level grunt work” – we think you’re definitely in need of less “internet” and more “real journalism” (you are 100% correct that won’t find it here – this is a blog we write in part for sh*ts and giggles, but mainly because we believe people like the grads affected by PwC’s conduct here need someone in their corner). In your search for real journalism, start with an article written by Hannah Low (http://firmspy.com/allens-arthur-robinson/3209/aar-loses-head-count-after-short-jab-upper-cut-knockout-blow) about a comparable corporate Australian firm engaging in precisely the kind of behaviour that, by the sound of it, you might have termed “outlandish” if you had read about it first on our site (which you might have, because we wrote about it at least three times before Hannah Low reported it).
But don’t spend too much time reading what those journos have to say – we enjoy hearing your thoughts here.
FS
Arctic Phoenix – in moments like this, it is most likely Kanye West would have replied with his classical “eat shit and die”, were he a grad.
Phil Ateley – interesting comment. What’s your age group – I note your spelling of Djakarta; in 2011 the spelling is Jakarta.
If they’re getting sent to Brisbane, Sydney and Perth, does that mean that those other offices don’t have an oversupply of tax staff or perhaps even a shortage? This article seems to raise an issue in stark contrast to the previous FS articles about mass voluntary exoduses of tax staff at the Big 4, suggesting that there would be staff shortages.
Six minutes: several thousand years.
I would like to know “do you yahoo?”
Bear – I had originally thought that your reference to a “good partner” was to a “partner” of a firm (I gave up on that “dream” some years ago), but now I understand you to mean a “partner” as in spouse/de factor/same sex whatever you call it. I don’t claim to be a “good” partner. I am human. I like to think I do my best, but sometimes I fail. For my partner’s sake, I hope that on average there’s more “good” than “bad”. But enough about me. One of the points that I was trying to make was that each Poor PwC Grad (“PPG”) who has a partner will have to make a choice between (1) dragging partner interstate, (2) leaving PwC and looking for a job elsewhere in Melbourne or (3) going interstate and have a long(ish) distance relationship. If PwC wasn’t offering interstate secondments, presumably only option (2) would be on offer (because PwC would make PPG redundant). PPG and PPG partner (“PPGP”) will have to decide what works best for them. I suggest that being a “good partner” in these circumstances means having a frank discussion where PPG and PPGP discuss (among other things) where their relationship is going, whether their life will be improved by some time in another city or by staying in Melbourne and whose “career” is more important. (In my experience, PPGs – especially male PPG’s – tend to rate their own career ahead of the careers of their partners.)
I agree with you that too few PPGs will seriously consider the option of leaving PwC. But they have their whole careers ahead of them, it’s hardly a fatal mistake.
And since we appear to have descended to name calling – I think you are naive. “Your generation” will be co-opted by the institutions you seem so keen to reform. Today’s party cadres are tomorrow’s capitalist exploiters. “Your generation” might demand “compassionate and ethical management”, but only after they have finished demanding more pay and perks than their peers. Playtime socialists.
Maybe if people in Melbourne spent less time on AFL and more on tax
avoidanceminimisation there would be more work for tax graduates.I think the commenters may be making a clear oversight/assumption that all PwC grads are at the start of their career. As has been the (increasing) case, some grads are in fact older people starting a second career and may well have families/mortgages etc to support.
@Another Pete – the time spent on AFL is what keeps us sane through the long cold winter months!
Oversight – you are correct that I am assuming that the vast majority (if not all) of the grads are young. I am pretty comfortable with this assumption. Large firms like PwC are usually even more biased against “older” employees than they are against female employees, which is a debate for another thread. But to the extent that my assumption is incorrect, I remain of the view that PwC does not “owe” the affected grads anything more than their salary and contractual/statutory rights, irrespective of the personal circumstances of the affected grads.
@ TPA???
While PwC may not be a company (as its a partnership), because it is a partnership there has to be a service company behind it which hires all the people below partner level, procures on behalf of the firm etc. This service company then has a services agreement of sorts with the partnership. All grads would be hired by this company.
Such company would be subject to TPA (leaving aside the questions of whether the employment provisions apply regardless etc).
Considering PwC tax is booming, I’d suggest theres more behind the move offer, or “ultimatum”. Get the facts before you start screaming wolf!
If PWC Tax is booming why would they push people to other states? It can’t be because of performance (unless you are implying that the smaller states don’t have the same performance standards?)
You know nothing. Nothing. If you work at PwC I would be suprised if u are not sacked this year because clearly I pass stools with more intelligence.
Cool your temper phil – when your private super fund goes belly up, it will be my generation who will decide the amount of your pension. All this talk of cadres and socialism seems as though you have been privileged with the excess of a petty bourgeois lifestyle with enogh time to read some engles, probably drink some wine, have great sex with a hairy socialist, and then throw it all away for the dolla as aloec black would say! As for name calling, if you don’t like me – call me a c###- dont reply with a bunch of acronyms and classic patronizing intellectual elitism. Being a good partner means putting your partner first, getting a job where you have time to take your son surfing, and enough money to go out to dinner once in a while, not decide whose career is more important!
@Phil Ateley
Sydney is filled with pretentious wankers? So you’re from Sydney I presume?
@bear
From one Gen y to another, your horrendous sense of entitlement isn’t helping us, OR your argument. The world isn’t a lovely rosy place. People are people. You are not special.
Seriously…. stop cluttering up this post with your rubbish.
PWC is shit is all I can say.
I was one of the grads during GFC and got cut with some shit excuses.. when clearly it was GFC.
My world felt like it ended cuz I rejected so many other offers for them! I reckon they should pay sufficient damages! No WONDER they have difficulties now hiring senior staff!!! Because everyone hates them and leaves as soon as they finish their CA!
Nice to see some robust discussion.
For the record I am not PwC. Rather an ex-PwCer.
Just sayin’ …
No doubt that no matter the field, all beginners have to earn their stripes. However Big 4 grad roles are not worth killing for as you suggested.
C’mon, how hard is say, an audit gig? It’s ridiculous the amount of prestige built around these positions.