The right stuff
Providing a client experience that is truly exceptional requires a diverse group of talented people and an environment in which we can all flourish and reach our full potential. At PwC we don’t stop in our efforts to stretch, develop and motivate our people, to provide stimulating careers and remarkable client service.
Nurturing talent
Creating an environment where talented people feel motivated starts at the top. As the leadership team, we have a responsibility to set a clear direction and enable our people to deliver their best. Of equal importance, however, is the personal responsibility each of our people takes to play their role in helping us deliver our vision.
We test our progress through our ‘youmatter’ partner and staff survey, which we conduct twice a year. The April 2009 survey generated the highest ever response rate at 80% (73% in October 2008).
Our people strategy focuses on the following key areas:
How we’re performing
Recruiting the best people
The landscape for graduate recruitment has changed dramatically in the last 12 months in line with the economic downturn. As a firm we have seen much higher application levels as more and more graduates have looked to professional services for a career.
We continue to benefit from our position as the leading graduate employer, for example, as voted for by students in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers survey.
The increase in applications has presented both challenges and opportunities as we look to manage this higher volume but at the same time raise the bar still further on the quality of recruits we take on.
We have continued to recruit our target numbers, some 1,000 students, across all our programmes. We firmly believe it’s a prudent commercial strategy to ensure we have the right number and quality of people at the firm as we begin to come out of the recession.
We were voted the top graduate employer by students for the sixth year in a row in The Times Top 100 and, for the first time this year, PwC was named finance sector graduate employer of the year.
We have launched some new INS1GHT programmes:
- A Talent Academy for first-year undergraduates was launched in July 2009 – the first of its kind in the UK
- An International Internship programme for second-year undergraduates to broaden the experiences of our student hires.
See our case study ‘A graduate’s story’ to read about the experiences of a PwC intern.
Alongside student recruitment, we also took on over 700 experienced hires from outside the firm to bolster the highest growth areas of our businesses. We have recruited at all levels and have invested in over 50 director and partner hires.
The 12-month rolling turnover at close of June is 17.2% (2008: 16.6%) and the high performer cumulative turnover is 6.6% (2008: 10.4%).
Engaging our people
Engagement levels rose between November 2007 and April 2009, with 61% now highly engaged or engaged.
The link between client engagement and people engagement is clear. Analysis of our own data shows us that those of our business units with high people engagement also have the highest client engagement.
Attributes of engagement
A graduate's story
Katy Cheung, an Audit senior associate, reflects on life through the eyes of a third-year graduate. Katy has a degree in Physics and Astronomy from Durham and currently works in our Newcastle office.
Engagement score
'We realise that sustaining our leading market position depends on unlocking the innovation, creativity and potential of everyone who works here.'
Mobility and agility
Our priority is to meet the changing needs of the business and manage through the downturn. Whether as opportunities for individuals or where the business has a strategic need to strengthen part of the firm, it makes great business and people sense to us to use our existing talent.
Treasury secondment
Early this year, the Treasury introduced the Asset Protection Scheme (APS), aiming to remove continuing uncertainty about the value of banks’ past investments, clean up their balance sheets and provide them with greater confidence to rebuild and restructure their operations – all leading to increased lending in the economy.
This year 50 people from our Tax team moved to our Performance Improvement Consultancy and Business Recovery Services team to help them meet increasing demand for their services. Others continue to support clients directly through secondments from the firm. See our ‘Treasury Secondment’ case study to hear Heather Blumberg’s story.
Mobility at PwC will become increasingly international as our business strategy embraces developing economies, with our people moving to other key territories such as China, India and the Middle East.
In the last year we had 177 people on international assignment and 269 inbound secondments from our network. A group of Chinese students joined us for nine months as part of the UK/China working programme sponsored by governments in both countries. This summer the students are returning home to complete their studies before taking up roles at our offices in China.
Developing our people
The more we develop our people, the more we understand our clients’ businesses and can offer new perspectives. We invest in our people’s development throughout their careers. We seek to provide an optimal mix of client experience, coaching and development programmes, supported by a range of activities including international assignments, community partnerships and voluntary programmes.
One such example is the PwC annual Pantomime.
Our priorities this year have been to support three valuable programmes:
- Emerging Leaders, for over 100 managers of exceptionally high potential
- Responsible Leadership, aimed at our partners
- Foundation for the Future, an industryleading programme pioneered in our consulting business. It helps new graduates and experienced hires learn about the culture of the firm and our methodologies.
These programmes are anchored in real business problem-solving, providing the necessary stretch needed to create our next generation of leaders.
Diversity
We realise that sustaining our leading market position depends on unlocking the innovation, creativity and potential of everyone who works for the firm. Diversity and inclusion is therefore an integral part of our strategy for competing in the current and future marketplace.
The basis of our strategy is to recognise all the ways in which people are different, from gender and ethnicity to social background and personality. Given our size, our diversity is our strength. We perform best by harnessing the collective and complementary skills, knowledge, backgrounds and networks of a rich mix of people who work together in an environment that is fully inclusive and totally respectful of individuals. Each of our Board members actively sponsors one of our diversity networks and has taken on a mentoring role for individuals in the firm.
In the limelight
Now in its 23rd year, the annual PwC Pantomime acts as a development tool for PwC employees up and down the country. For the 200 people involved, it presents a unique opportunity to learn new skills outside the normal work environment, as well as to build personal networks across the firm.
Gender split across the firm
13% of our UK partners are female, and of our internal admissions to partnership on 1 July this year, 16% (5) were female.
Successes in the past year include:
- Opportunity Now Award for Advancing Women in Business
- Gold Standard in the Opportunity Now benchmarking survey
- Ranked 21st in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index
Our priority areas for next year
We have clear priorities for the coming year. We will continue to recruit the best people, through a focus on our graduate employer proposition and targeted experienced hires in growth areas.
We will further enhance our key learning and development programmes, and seek to inspire and motivate our people. We are introducing a one firm approach to managing our people which will ensure greater transparency around the wellbeing and performance management of our people.
We are focusing on equipping our managers with the coaching and management skills needed to give staff honest feedback to continually improve performance. We are introducing a one firm approach to bonuses and performance ratings to provide clarity and consistency where it’s needed.
We recognise that we need to do more to ensure that the rich diversity of talent we attract in the firm is better represented within our partnership and leadership teams, and this is a personal as well as a Board priority. One example of action we are taking is the extension across the entire firm of an award-winning programme piloted in our Advisory business to increase the number of women coming through to partnership.
Recruiting outstanding people and helping them maximise their potential means that we are well placed to continue to deliver the best of PwC to our clients and our communities.
Special report - Lehman Brothers administration
Right place, right team
September 2008 saw the largest ever PwC deployment on a single assignment when 620 partners and staff from 17 business areas across the firm took on the Lehman Brothers administration.
When PwC’s head of insolvency, Tony Lomas, took the call about Lehman Brothers he had just 24 hours in which to assemble a team to respond to perhaps the biggest and most complex administration in history. Three of those team members share their experiences.
Paul Copley, Ellie Lishman, Trang Trinh
Having joined PwC as a summer intern in 1993, Paul Copley is now a Business Recovery Services (BRS) partner in London:
‘On Sunday 14 September I received a message telling me to go into Canary Wharf right away. We worked through the night as the bank collapsed and I then got completely immersed in the job. Eleven months later here I am.
‘On the Sunday, we had six people on site. Less than 24 hours later we had 150, and within a few weeks over 300. First and foremost, either insolvency or banking and capital markets experience are important. After that, we’re looking for a commercial outlook, tenacity, project management skills, diplomacy and sheer stamina.
‘Over the period, there has been a core of people who have remained here throughout, but generally speaking we look to rotate people on and off the assignment after a few months where possible, so that they can keep getting lots of different experiences at the firm. ‘Without question, the opportunities at PwC are virtually limitless. The leadership team promotes the idea of ‘cycles of experience’. Whilst this means different things to different people, during my career I’ve worked in five PwC business units, two offices, three continents, about ten countries and one secondment – and I’m still learning. Right now I’m at Lehman Brothers and well-placed to assist other financial services clients who are in distress, but in a few years’ time, who knows?’
Ellie Lishman joined PwC as a graduate and is now a Forensics executive based in our Leeds office:
‘I volunteered to join the project during a team meeting and a week later I was at Lehman Brothers in Canary Wharf. I oversee a team of people in Trust Property who are processing and investigating client asset claims.
‘In my first month here I worked with colleagues from Forensics, Business Recovery Services, Performance Improvement Consulting, Regulatory, Audit, Banking & Capital Markets and Insurance & Investment Management. I don’t think any other firm could have pulled together that combination of people at such short notice.
‘There are so many stakeholders in Lehman that it’s a careful balancing act. By ensuring the administrators have all the information and facts before making a decision, they are protecting the interests of all involved wherever possible.
‘The impact the Lehman collapse has had on the wider world due to its size and number of creditors is substantial. By communicating regularly with the outside world they have been able to involve other communities as much as possible. Reading about the work that we are doing in the news has been a real insight – especially when emotions are running high amongst clients.’
Trang Trinh is a Financial Services manager on secondment from PwC’s Melbourne office:
‘I came to London through PwC’s Global Mobility Programme, having previously worked on assignments in Scotland, Switzerland, the US and New Zealand.
‘My role on Lehman is to work with Front Office traders, legal advisers and external parties to unwind live derivative positions and securities, working on about three to four transactions simultaneously, all with the objective of realising cash for the Lehman estate.
‘Our work at Lehman brings ‘doing the right thing’ to life for me as we are working as one team for the benefit of the creditors and those affected by the collapse. I have benefited from this too through the invaluable experience that I am gaining, given that a job of this magnitude and complexity has never been done before.
‘It has been a fantastic experience; not only has it been challenging but also a very interesting project to work on. The learning curve has been very steep, especially on the insolvency and legal aspects. I have also definitely developed my technical knowledge and the softer skills; particularly in being able to engage and interact with so many different people. And when I return home, I will have a broader network of friends and colleagues.’
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