Silent layoffs are rarely as silent as bosses hope

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The annals of poorly managed restructuring are full of classic episodes, made worse by technology. Workers suffered mass layoffs through Tannoy, voicemail, texting and Zoom. Now the UK arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers has charted new territory by attempting to orchestrate a series of “silent layoffs” via email.

The Big Four’s attempt to silence the targeted voluntary departures of their colleagues has proven far from silent. Maybe she’s not even that new. The most effective attempts to prevent departing employees from making their dismissal known are, by definition, difficult to detect.

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PwC’s mistake seems to have been to tell people leaving not to mention that they had agreed to a severance deal, and then advise them on how to phrase their farewells. For example: “Following recent discussions with my (relationship manager), I have made the decision to leave PwC. It has not been an easy decision for me to make, but now that I have made the decision, I am excited about what the future holds and the new opportunities that lie ahead. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at PwC and the opportunity to work with such talented colleagues.”

There is no quicker way to ensure that corporate secrets are revealed than to insist that they remain secret. The emailed order to “not refer to the offer of voluntary redundancy or the circumstances of the departure” became the FT’s second most-read article last weekend. Perhaps a member of the PwC HR team is feeling less “excited about what the future holds” themselves.

Among potential explanations, HR critics have been quick to point out the nastiness or incompetence of personnel managers who have gone out of their way to expel excess staff while avoiding panic or a scramble for a limited sum of severance.

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Yet most companies undergo periodic restructuring. Sometimes because they need to reverse poorly managed expansion, but often because fluctuating demand has left the right people in the wrong places.

It’s possible that PwC is simply not in its element. Professional services firms are accustomed to hiring thousands of people and letting natural attrition handle layoffs for them. Young auditors and consultants have short stays with the Big Four – time to take their professional exams or add the logo to their LinkedIn profile – then move on to the next professional challenge.

But slowing demand has led to workforce reductions and headlines. Deloitte, using the same word as PwC, launched a “targeted” restructuring last year which was criticized for planning to cut 150 junior consultant roles, reducing the careers of staff who had joined the group one or two years ago earlier. McKinsey & Company, master of the diplomatic “up or out” approach to expelling employees, had to take a harder knife to underperformers. They are now advised, euphemistically, to “leave”.

White-collar workers who have been let go sometimes make noise, which may also explain PwC’s attempt to silence those who are about to be let go. A PwC trainee auditor who failed his audit exams in 2016 went viral with his awkward email, explaining: “I haven’t particularly enjoyed most of my years at PwC, largely because of the stress of exams and the fact that I don’t have a lot of tolerance for boredom.”

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The most charitable interpretation is that the PwC email was the product of an overenthusiastic effort by an HR manager to prepare a mass response to genuine individual inquiries about how to delicately handle what can be a Awkward office experience.

Whatever the explanation, the layoff dictate itself was redundant. In my experience, most people who choose to pay to quit smoking don’t brag or complain about it. They don’t need to. Most of their colleagues know what happened through office information, which is invariably more effective and accurate than most HR-mediated intra-company communications.

It remains to be seen whether Gen Z’s trend of “quitting loudly” via TikTok and other social media will become more widespread. But most disgruntled leavers recognize that there is no point in complaining publicly, for fear of annoying a future boss or potential client. The happy want to move on, using their salary as a springboard to a better or different path. For both groups, presenting themselves as the one leaving rather than the one being dumped suits the narrative of their next episode.

Please, though, if you want to copy-paste the PwC script, leave out the question of launching yourself into “new opportunities on the horizon.” Save the clichés for when you finally get there, and then openly brag that being fired by a Big Four accounting firm was “the best thing that ever happened to you.”

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd.

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