Wrongful dismissals at Big 4 in developing countries to become common practice!
Financial Crisis always make additional emphasis on things which are not noticeable in ordinary times. You will never care for you job as much as in times when half of your colleagues had suddenly found themselves jobless. You will never feel such tremendous desire to concentrate on your personal issues in such a way as during the crisis when all of non-personal live simply doesn't give you any news except for disappointing. You will never understand the true difference between working in an international company situated in a developed country and same company from developing country until the crisis comes.
Couple of things happened around me last week which proved me how significant there can be difference between countries.
The story of lay offs within Big 4.
First thing came after lunch, one day after the Easter. One by one, almost half of my department have been fired. The next day brought some more additional lay offs within other departments. The process itself was looking so dramatically that most of the female part of the team couldn't stop eating pills in order not to get worry:
Step 1. The HR person comes to you sitting in the open space and accompany you to your partner's room.
Step 2. You are told that you are good guy but fired.
Step 3. You go back to you cubicle and start to pack think in order to leave the premises of the office ASAP.
When you see that steps for several times, you simply stop working and smoothly go into stuck and panic waiting for you turn...I enjoyed that stance several times.
What is the peculiarity of a third world? You get no parachutes despite any clauses within you contract. You get your statutory minimum compensation for the lay off and that's all. You are fired without any explanation or grounding for that despite good feedback from you counsellor or mentor which you heard one day before. You will be fired on your vacation having "good surprise" coming back to office.... and more and more.... enough to get the basics of wild capitalism within the young developing economy.
Story about fight incident wrongful dismissal at Big 4.
An auditor from KPMG was invited to partner's office and kindly offered to resign by own wish, offering extra salary as a compensation. When the auditor refused to take this decision and offered 5 month salary compensation, he was told how powerful the company was - which sounded more like a menace. After refusal - the Company representatives started to push/bull verbally on him in order to get his computer. The next day his entrance card has not been working. Once he came into the office - the push machine continued to work on him. He didn't make the decision again this day.
Finally, the third day, partners simply called security and through him away out of office - without compensation, documentation, procedures and explanation.
The auditor is now looking for justice with help of legislation and courts.
That's the way the Big 4 work in developing countries. Wrongful dismissals during the crisis became common practice within the Big 4 putting well-known international companies in line with local half-legal private enterprises.
The story is to be continued....
Sources (only in Russian):
http://blogs.korrespondent.net/users/blog/negnemoy/a9488
http://alexeycus-kpmg.livejournal.com/
5 comments:
Hi,
It's sad to see that the Big 4 behave like that all over the world (not only in developing country). I understand from your article that the situation is worst in countries of the third world where there is low social protection...
It's a clear violation of the ethics and social responsibility rules that the Big 4 advertize on their websites...
From an individual standpoint, I don't think that we can do anything against a Big4 (except trying to negociate a severance package or suing them), but I think that the people who are fired from a Big 4 should try to communicate together and organize themselves at a country level. They should create blogs, forums and groups (eg: yahoo groops) to resist. This is the only way to impact a Big 4's image and hence to limit the number of layoffs and/or to obtain packages...
Good luck... Hopefully you will not be personnally impacted.
As a company they are leveraging anything they can do to maximize their profits and that includes firing/laying off in improper ways. Honestly if i was a company i would do the same practices...As an employee this is horrible. In time, just like in the American past, rules will be implace to make things better
Yes, I can see it happening also. I am in a Big 4 in a developing country. People, senior people but non partner group are asked to resign. No compensation. They are told that if they do not things will get dirty for them. That is it. They serve notice period of one-two months and look for a job, which is hard to get.
I was among those fired in April. It was really unexpected. I was devoted to my job and my company. Maybe devoted too much. I was planning to stay with my company for long-long time. Two weeks before, there was performance meeting and I was told that my performance is outstanding, my feedbacks were the best and I would be double promoted in summer.
I was planned for engagements till September. Without any gap.
It was shocking, when Monday morning, after I’ve spent a weekend in the office completing an engagement, I was told that I have to leave. Nothing personal, it’s just business. Crisis, bla-bla-bla, we have to say good buy to good people, sorry, buy.
Two days later I was reached by two companies, and two weeks later received a job offer. Salary twice higher, no weekend work, no overtime work. Myself I would never dare for such a change.
Maybe I had to go through this to change my views and attitude to work. It’s just work, nothing personal :)
I miss my colleagues, and that special atmosphere that we created. However, most of those colleagues were fired with me, some left later not to become part of next firing stage, and atmosphere died that Monday. So, nothing to regret!
Good post very useful
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