A few weeks ago, you’ll recall the sermon we delivered in respect of Deloitte Chief Giam Sweigers’ “favourite management mottos”. We  read Giam’s commandments mottos, immediately took the Lord’s name in vain, and thereafter made a religious vow to do whatever we could to spread stop His messages.

For those who’ve forgotten, in a staggering BRW article, Giam variously exclaimed:

fail fast

“Try new things, but fail fast and fail cheaply.”

“Soft on people, tough on performance.”

“Leadership is not about taking people where they want to go, it’s about taking people where they should go. It’s not a popularity contest.”

In our minds this immediately evoked the image of a Papal assembly, huddled beneath a Vatican window, devouring to the words of a religious leader.

But have the Deloitte masses been listening? Apparently, yes!

We received the following comments from an anonymous Deloitte spy a couple of weeks ago:

Firm Spy,

Here at Deloitte, our leader Giam Swiegers constantly bothers us with his whimsical, stream-of-consciousness “messages”. When I say “messages”, I mean that every day, almost without fail, we receive a voicemail (an innovative communication tool from Deloitte management that, for some reason, they believe is more powerful than conventional email) from Giam giving us spiritual guidance and his thoughts for the day. Among the various nuisances he delivers to us on a day-to-day basis, are the homages he pays to arcane religious holidays like “happy-Martyrdom-of-Guru-Tegh-Bahadur-Ji-day”. I wish I was joking.

“Prayer time”, as a few of us call it, has been done to death. But the final straw came earlier this year when Giam failed to recognise ANZAC Day. Yes, despite recounting every single religious holiday - including all those observed by the people who entered “Jedi” [as their chosen religion] in the national census - Giam forgot to mention the one that really matters.

Holy moly - Giam forgot ANZAC Day!

But the blasphemous employee reproach does not stop there. We received the following biblically proportioned spray from another Deloitte spy a few days ago:

As part of its much awaited remuneration process, Deloitte has once again delivered very little on its promises. After the convoluted messages of the past and subsequent pay freezes, much is expected… and as is usually the case there is very little. High volumes of staff received nil payrises with the average being less than 5% in a period where partner distributable profit has increased by 22% and 11% revenue growth. Just to reinforce that staff are just that… staff. An email was sent by Giam advising that we are the 14th best place to work in Australia. Clearly the vote was taken well before news of the payrise hit but rather was done at a time when there was strong rhetoric that we would be rewarded for what have been some hard years. Thanks Giam.

Yes, a well-timed psalm that one! These comments were given a blessing by the following words, sent by yet another Deloitte preacher:

hi guys, Apparently the Deloitte payletters just came out very recently for the Audit and Assurance staff… the word is senior analysts were very very disappointed…

By “disappointed”, do you think our Deloitte spy means that workers have lost their faith? Or is it time that they accepted a vow of poverty?

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You probably all know by now that the Firm Spy has a certain soft spot for wanker corporate idioms. So we spat our coffee out with glee this morning as we thumbed our way through the current edition of BRW (21/4) to find a handful of Deloitte chief executive partner Giam Swiegers’ “favourite management mottos”.

the commitment tick

The first one:

“try new things, but fail fast and fail cheaply.”

No wonder Deloitte allegedly has the following policy in relation to its firm-subsidised CA education policy:

if you fail 1 subject you get a warning, 2 subjects a written warning and 3… you’re fired!

Fail fast… and GET OUT! Giam’s second “management motto” also published in BRW is:

“soft on people, tough on performance.”

Yes, we certainly know about the “tough on performance” ethos Giam! We reported various rumours last year that Deloitte was systematically managing employees out of the firm, based on their performance. To this day, Mr Swiegers denies our allegations. As noted by BRW:

Deloitte maintains it made no mass retrenchments. Confronted by claims [presumably ours] that partners actively managed people out of the business during [the GFC] Swiegers: “I don’t have to answer to the outside world. I know what the facts are and a March survey of 2200 staff, half our total workforce, shows they believe I live up to my commitments.”

So… greater than 50% of the 50% of staff surveyed gave Giam “the commitment tick”? Congratulations Giam! This must mean you’re being true to your “tough on performance management motto”!

Rounding out Giam’s management mottos published in BRW is the following:

Leadership is not about taking people where they want to go, it’s about taking people where they should go. It’s not a popularity contest.

Hmmm … where is Giam’s leadership taking Deloitte staff? An article published by News yesterday suggested there will be a “mass exodus of unhappy accountants” in the near future:

A major revolt appears to be stirring among finance and accounting staff across the nation that could threaten a mass exodus from the industry … research by financial recruitment firm Robert Half found that 50 per cent of finance and accountancy staff planned to quit their jobs, and were either already seeking a new job or thinking about taking the plunge.

If this were a popularity contest, would it be fair to say Giam’s leadership is leading workers out the door? And those surveyed, are they the same 50% of Deloitte staff who were not invited to give Giam the “commitment tick”?

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We published a report last year on the seemingly oppressive education conditions that Big4 accounting firm Deloitte forced upon junior staff. Our anonymous Deloitte spy noted in that post, in respect of those studying to become a CA, that:

if you fail 1 subject you get a warning, 2 subjects a written warning and 3… you’re fired!

Following on from that story, we received the following excellent comments from a Deloitte spy last week:

new Deloitte digs

Hi guys … a couple of pieces of news from Tax at Deloitte. Following on from your story regarding the requirement for analysts to re-pay the firm should they fail any CA programs it is worth noting the firm has let down tax analysts re their Masters program too. The grads that started last year were promised that they could complete 2 subjects per semester, thus allowing them to finish their Masters within 2 years. Well come the GFC these promises turned to dust. Not only were the grads not allowed to complete any subjects last year but now the firm will only fund one subject per semester, doubling the time to get a Masters (this change impacted all Masters students btw as even those who had commenced their study already were held back to one funded unit per semester).

Our Deloitte spy then proceeded to give us yet another insight into the besieged Deloitte Tax group (thanks for the comprehensive work!):

In other news there are rumblings within the non Corporate Tax groups in the wider Tax group (eg TP and Indirect). These groups consistently exceed target but until Corp reaches target (never going to happen) no bonuses will be paid to seniors and above in the specialty groups. Well not quite no bonuses…the partners in these groups have been raking in huge bonuses on the back of their staff bringing in the dollars. This is clearly evident from the 2 huge mansions just constructed by 2 of the Indirect PArtners Jon Graham and John Koutsogiannis, not to mention the lavish personal spending by TP partners of late.

Is your partner splashing the cash while you starve? Do you partners impose harsh education conditions?

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In recent weeks we have reported the rumour that Big4 accounting firms PwC and Deloitte are being crippled by a reported flood of employee departures. These departures, we speculated, are a result of the harsh working conditions these employees have confronted over the last 18 months.

And if the following comments of our anonymous KPMG spy are to be believed, the loss of valued workers might be an issue currently confronting all Big4 firms:

PwC have some sort of non-monetary award thing. Deloitte are reallocating their resources to make up for staff shortages. KPMG Advisory… is doing nothing to stop the haemorrhaging of employees. The market is picking up, and people are not satisfied with the way they’ve been treated over the past 18 months. They are not satisfied with the leadership, pay and the lack of recognition of work, and morale is at an all time low. The cream of the Advisory crop has already been reaped by Macquarie Group, and they can’t find replacement employees in some areas. The ones who are left try and pick up the slack, but this is not recognised, not even a word of ‘thanks’. There is a severe staff shortage, particularly amongst junior levels. Attempts to communicate the morale issues to the Partners have failed. They seem to live in an ivory tower, nicely protected by the ladder climbers who convince them that nothing is wrong.

Meanwhile, in a further update to our report on the major loss of workers from Deloitte’s tax group in Sydney, came the following scathing comments from an anonymous Deloitte spy:

We received the following comments from an anonymous Deloitte spy in response to our post from earlier in the month when we reported that the Big4 firm was losing audit seniors

We invite Deloitte to respond to the allegations (the veracity of which we cannot, of course, confirm).

Hi FS, In the spirit of friendly rivalry between those of us in Deloitte Tax and those in Deloitte Private, if you thought the number of audit seniors leaving Deloitte Private was bad, you should see what’s been going on in Deloitte Tax in Sydney. There has been a surge in the number of analysts, senior analysts and

Taxing times

managers who have been leaving the department over the past year. It’s got so bad that it’s woken Giam up from complacency to send a voicemail to all the partners in tax telling them to pull their finger out. While every group within tax has put in a good effort in producing several resignations, the group that has far excelled all others is without question the FSI group led by John

Giannakopoulos. Over the past couple of years, this group alone would’ve farewelled well over 20 employees, impressively losing on average about one person per month. In fact with a senior analyst and an analyst finishing up in the past week, there are currently no senior analysts in that group and of all the employees who started out as graduates in previous years, only one remains.

Good luck to the new grads of 2010.

A major problem in my opinion in that group seems to be with certain members of the management inefficient and bullies. I’ve heard that complaints have been made against them during the frequent and unrelenting exit interviews of the analysts, and I’ve heard an inter-departmental complaint was even made at one point. However these obvious concerns have clearly fallen on deaf ears to the point that the group is now without sufficient resources. The leadership, or lack thereof, shown by the partners in this group, to properly investigate the causes of the problem and take action, is appalling. Due to this lack of resources some of the work within the FSI group has been given to analysts in other tax groups that don’t specialise in financial services. Unless the problems with some of these members of management are addressed, this just means there is now a fresh batch of analysts from other groups who will soon start dwindling in number.

In the past few weeks, the national head of tax, John Womack, has also called for a “reallocation of resources” in the Sydney tax department, meaning the groups are to be merged from 5 specialised groups to 3 generic groups to account for the reduction in employees. This doesn’t rectify any of the problems in tax as it doesn’t address the reasons behind why people are leaving. So you can probably expect more people to be leaving in the future. If I were a client, I’d be worried - even if the partners aren’t.

Indeed. If the allegations of the anonymous Deloitte spy are to be believed, we too would be worried. We await further clarification from the firm.

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Thanks to the Deloitte spy who sent us the following comments over the weekend:

Deloitte Private in Sydney has lost another 2 audit seniors. The rate at which Deloitte Private loses audit seniors is phenominal and partners, including cluster lead, Michael Kaplan, are living in a sense of denial in which they state that ”nothing is wrong”. Could it be that the entire Deloitte culture says lets screw staff with all we’ve got for the enrichment of the partner group? I love how Giam Swiegers, CEO, defends his and the partner greed by referring to the fact that at Deloitte people are motivated by being engaged, not being paid bonuses. Well then why do the partners get bonuses? Recent access to a file that should probably have been confidential reveals that non equity partners bonus in “times of having to monitor costs” was around $60k pa. On top of an average salary of $240k makes a sweet $300k per year (I emphasise that this is relatively newly appointed partners and is only the base). No wonder a new audit partner was able to splash out on an expensive home in Mosman. So what do the other staff get? Well lets see, Brand new grads - $50k pa Exp analysts (pretty much doing the job of a senior without the title - $55k pa, a measely $5k more pa. Audit senior - about $60k pa Manager - starting on around $85k And then they wonder why the audit seniors are leaving the firm!!

Are senior staff walking out on your firm? Are partners giving themselves bonuses while juniors starve?

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Ever the unpopular leader amongst juniors, Deloitte Chief Executive partner Giam Swiergers has apparently reached a new nadir, though this time with vacation clerks.

Giam, elected only days ago to continue in his role as head of Deloitte, has apparently made the very first cost-cut of his new term. And it is a very merry cost cut!

This from an anonymous Deloitte spy yesterday:

Hi FS, 

Just some news in regarding the vacationers at Deloitte. Apparently Deloitte is too cash strapped (or stingy) to invite them to the Christmas party. Good thing the vaccies are learning this lesson now, because when they start with the firm Uncle Giam will be too stingy to give them payrises, bonuses and many other benefits too.

In response to our articles profiling the CA policies of Big4 accounting firms, first at PwC and then at Ernst & Young, we received the following anonymous tip from a Deloitte spy:

Look Deloitte is not too far behind. Experienced analysts only earn $2k more a year than grads. Also, if you fail 1 subject you get a warning, 2 subjects a written warning and 3… you’re fired!

You’ll recall that at Ernst & Young, the following was sent to us:

I’d like to mention that Ernst & Young also has the same policy to PwC in terms of failing 2 CA subjects and you’re out. But on top of that, if we fail a subject we owe E&Y $1k (per subject) for study assistance /time off etc. Can you believe it? We already work ridiculous hours to get through the piles of work AND we also have the added pressure of having to study and pass our CA subjects otherwise we could lose our jobs AND owe E&Y $1k! Theres really no such thing as “study assistance” because they’re gonna get their moneys worth anyway. Watch those fancy grad brochures… they are empty promises.

Meanwhile, at PWC:

… There are a lot of extremely pissed of employees at PwC feeling a little bit like indentured slaves that get dictated everything. [First] a … pay cut to take ‘flexible’ leave. [Second]That there is no overtime system anymore (not that TOIL was awesome, but at least it was something). now CA. This firm just does not stop - graduates stay away and make sure you ask questions about how long your are locked in for if you want to do CA! PwC can now fire you if you fail 2 subjects. It’s all under the ‘policy’. Payraises were so bad this year that 2nd year accountants are only being paid $1k more than 1st years.

Does anyone care to send us the KPMG policy (that way we’ll have each of the Big4)?

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Simply exceptional Deloitte firm spying has enabled us to break yet another major story today: the disagreeably garish Giam Swiegers has been given the nod for another term.

ill catch the bastards!

Wanker Flamboyant shirts and all!

6 dissident partners in Deloitte? Are you listening KPMG, EY and PWC? And if we are doing so great, why are pay reviews and promotions still on an icy lake? ====== attached message ====== Greetings, This is a message to the whole of the firm on the results of the CEO Succession Ballot. I have advised the partners by voicemail earlier today. Deloitte is certainly different. In uncertain times we have maintained our determination to meet our plan and the overwhelming endorsement by the partners of a third term for our CEO Giam Swiegers just demonstrates the alignment and confidence of this firm. The results of the 379 votes cast in the ballot as to whether the CEO should get a third term are: YES : 373 NO : 2 ABSTAIN : 4 This is also a real credit to confidence in our CEO as we come to the end of our 2010 Plan and move to our 2015 Plan. It also goes beyond the strategic to the range of other initiatives that make us different such as our people program and the Inspiring Women Initiative. Regards Wayne Goss Chairman

Thanks for the update Wayne. Any naming and shaming of the dissidents? Giam’s iron-fisted ruling would soon see them de-equitised, one would have thought.

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We reported several weeks ago the technonological indiosyncracy of Deloitte - “send the punters voicemails, that way a bad news email cant be flicked to media”.

This is excellent in theory but in practice, if you’ve got a catalogue of disgruntled employees feverishly transcribing the contents of the voicemail, then, bad news can still travel fast.

Take, for example, the horrible news that a couple of Deloitte workers were reportedly sacked for organising a weekend bag of sniff over a Deloitte-owned communication device.

We received the following message from an anonymous Deloitte spy a few days ago:

Hi, I am a new follower of firmspy and this is my first contribution. My latest news is about Deloitte. Recently, we received two voicemails from Keith Skinner, CFO, (both on Friday afternoons) that the current pay freeze would remain in place at December but normal promotions would still occur as per normal. However, some service lines have decided to deliberately misinterpret this policy and have ruled out promotions altogether. The firm and partners have played on the uncertainty around this issue by refusing to announce which policy is correct. Some partners’ response to the issue has been whether the employees preferred redundancies or a promotion? Tough choice? Not really!

So what’s the story Skinner? Get the disagreeably garish Giam Swiegers on the phione! It’s not the old trick of increasing a worker’s charge-out rate (look, he’s now a fifth year!) but failing to increase the same worker’s wage, is it?! It is probably unsurprising that Giam and the team can afford a half million dollar partnership summit.

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