KPMG Offers UK Staff Shorter Working Week

Tue, 20 Jan 2009

KPMG has offered its 11,000 UK employees the option of working a four-day week, or taking a partially paid sabbatical in a bid to avoid redundancies amid the economic downturn .

The ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm has given employees, including partners, until 6 February to volunteer to work reduced hours, or to take leave of between four and 12 weeks on 30 per cent pay.

While KPMG has stressed that the scheme is entirely voluntary, it is hoping the vast majority of its workforce will opt to apply for the scheme by the deadline. The company will then decide which employees will take part in the scheme, depending on their role in the organisation and the state of the British economy.

A spokesman for the professional services firm said while it was impossible to rule out further job cuts, the measures aim to give the firm "flexibility to be able to manage the workforce and costs should conditions deteriorate".

He explained: "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."

"This is a way of enabling us hopefully to hold on to our people and keep all that talent at KPMG ."

The move by KPMG follows hundreds of voluntary redundancies at its rivals PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte carried out last year and underlines the impact of the economic crisis on the profession.

Smaller firms including Grant Thornton and PKF recently announced plans to cut hundreds of jobs this year in expectation of slower revenue growth.
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