Cost-saving KPMG hangs up on staff mobiles
KPMG has taken back hundreds of staff mobiles in a cost-cutting measure which the Big Four firm hopes will “free up funds to invest in the future of the firm”.
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Love the fact it is the lowest paid workers who are effectively funding the audit fines. Though the poor partners having to fill in their own expense claims is one of the most first world problems I have heard about in a while
Will this entire measure save the equivalent of one average partner's drawings?
Are the partners now travelling economy? Staying in budget hotels? Attending less 'conferences' abroad?
Profits up 18% (driven by the work of the 'cost base').
I bet KPMG 'cost base' staff are feeling really wanted about now. This is fairly typical of the larger firms, who view support staff as a 'cost base' rather than the valuable resource that enables the rest of them to function, and look to 'save money' by cutting away the people who actually matter rather than examining the higher levels of management.
And partners having to fill in their own expenses claims...I can just imagine what a mess that will cause!!
Is this the same KPMG that advises people how to run companies? You could not make this up. It is the 1st October and not 1st April, isn't it?
When I was there, they spent money on a "Who moved my cheese" book for every staff member, then announced job cuts and a slimming down of the annual drunken "away day"
"accountant and fair tax campaigner Richard Murphy reckons the phone-less KPMG worker “may as well become a ghost”."
Presumably this is the same self-proclaimed tax expert Richard Murphy who wrote on his blog on August 19 that;
"National insurance is payable on earnings over £6,136 per annum in 2019/20,"
I'm not sure that employees earning £8,632 p.a. would have agreed with him that his proposal of NIC at 4% on amounts above £6,136 would make them better off as he said it would.
No doubt I'll be accused of pedantry for pointing this out but I happen to think that a grasp of the basics really ought to come before any claim to be an expert.
I am surprised by how often I see this rent-a-gob quoted on this site. He is a self-proclaimed tax expert who only ever pops up to give his two-cents in media articles on tax.
I remember a few years ago he was promoting some crack-pot scheme for businesses to have a stamp to show they had paid their 'fair share' of taxes (as decided by him)
It reminds me to the late 90's when I worked there.
1st years were not allowed laptops.
2nd years had hand-me-downs from the 3rd years (if you were lucky)
3rd years got hand me downs from the middle managers
You often sat there writing stuff out long hand, only to type it in when 'the computer' was free, and the thing crash on you about 5 times a day as it was well past its best in an environment where computers used every ounce of oomf to run things.
The partners of course could not see what the fuss was about, and the need for all these computers for the younger staff who should be ticking or something.
It reminds me to the late 90's when I worked there.
1st years were not allowed laptops.
2nd years had hand-me-downs from the 3rd years (if you were lucky)
3rd years got hand me downs from the middle managersYou often sat there writing stuff out long hand, only to type it in when 'the computer' was free, and the thing crash on you about 5 times a day as it was well past its best in an environment where computers used every ounce of oomf to run things.
The partners of course could not see what the fuss was about, and the need for all these computers for the younger staff who should be ticking or something.
Hard to believe this was the 1990's. When I worked at another Big 4 late 80's to mid 90's everyone had a decent laptop!
it might just have been our (regional office). In the first year we were carrying about Macs in huge bags. [The square ones which with a big screen with a floppy drive below it)
One Mac per audit team was about it. Juniors just did time sheets and read (staff) emails on it. O, and carried the thing. They were heavy when you had to park a way off, and carry your brief case (remember those?) plus a box of files too.
Most of the working papers were manual. This was 95-98.
'KPMG notified employees in a memo to the change, explaining that “To realise our growth ambition, we need to improve our profitability by building a leaner, more responsive cost base”.'
More responsive cost base..... whats that Chinese for.
KPMG have always been the same, I couldnt get a new mouse when I was there due to cost cutting.