PwC Australia responds to COVID-19

AUSTRALIA – PwC Australia has briefed its 700 partners and 8000 strong workforce on a range of measures to steer the firm through the Covid-19 health crisis and meet three key objectives; 1) to keep staff safe and well, 2) to protect jobs and avoid Covid-19 related redundancies and 3) to ensure the firm can continue to support Government, businesses and the community through the crisis and help them rebuild on the other side.

CEO Elect, Mr Tom Seymour said, “These are very challenging times for all Australian businesses and PwC Australia is not immune from the economic disruption being caused by this global health crisis.

“We said a few weeks ago that we had no plans or desire to undertake redundancies as a result of Covid-19 and we remain committed to that goal.

“We are focused on supporting our clients and the broader community through the crisis and out the other side, when Governments, businesses and communities start to rebuild. We are also focused on doing everything possible to avoid redundancies and keep our people employed through the crisis and ready to help Australia rebound.

“We have seen significant changes in the mix of client work during the past few weeks. Many clients have put projects on hold and we have seen a number of transactions stall given the volatility in domestic and global markets. However, clients are also seeking out services in a number of other areas including protecting the welfare and wellbeing of their workforce, supply chain management, operational resilience and business continuity planning. 

“We have a significant number of our teams working directly with Government and private sector health organisations assisting with the challenges that our front line responders to this crisis are facing.

“In our audit business we're focussed on ensuring high quality financial information is shared on a timely basis to help capital markets continue to function effectively. We are acutely aware that there will be more professional judgement required in this upcoming reporting season than there has been for decades. 

“We have created a specialist team of our most experienced audit Partners who will act as a real-time consultation panel for Partners and teams delivering listed company audits. In this time of crisis we remain  steadfast in our commitment to audit quality.

“For the past 3 weeks more than 95% of our people have been successfully working from home, supported by technology that has enabled us to continue to collaborate and work with our clients seamlessly. Our offices remain accessible for our people for essential needs and to provide an option for our people if they are unable to work safely from home.

“All of our employees have been mapped to a team leader and partner in our new virtual world with daily 1-1 check-ins and our teams are using our collaboration tools to stay engaged, aligned and focused on how we can best support our clients and each other in this new world. 

“The wellbeing and mental health of our workforce is a constant focus for us as a firm, and we are currently working on an augmented strategy to engage and support our people through these challenging times.

“We are undertaking at least fortnightly webcasts with our partners and our people to keep them up to date on how we are supporting our clients and how the firm is tracking to keep them fully informed of developments.

“We have made a commitment to our people to do everything we can to protect jobs and not make people redundant as a result of Covid-19. Whilst we cannot underestimate the significant impact this health crisis is having on the economy, it will pass, and when it does, we need our skilled workforce ready to go and able to support our clients as the economy powers back up.

“Partner income draws have been reduced by 20%, commencing from 1 March 2020.  We have advised Partners that we expect that incomes for FY21 will be reduced in the range of 30 to 40%, with no bonuses.  

“We have also made the following decisions to manage the financial impacts over the next few months:

• We anticipate that the majority of our workforce will move to a 4 day working week by 1 May at the latest. However, where our people are still required to work at 100%, such as people who are delivering Financial Audits, they won’t be subject to the reduction in their working week. A small number of teams will move to a three day working week. 

• Our people can use their annual leave to top up their remuneration to 100% if they choose to do so for a period of time

• All variable income such as pay rises and bonuses for  both partners and staff have been deferred 

• The July 1 Partner admissions have been deferred

“These decisions will be reviewed regularly with the goal of restoring our people to their usual working arrangements as soon as possible.

“Whilst these decisions are difficult and we don’t underestimate the impact they will have on our people, they are in line with our primary goal of avoiding Covid-19 redundancies,” Mr Seymour said.