Tell me your Big 4 experience. Being pushed

[Beingpushed]

I have been working for a few years in a Manager role in a big 4. My team has recently moved to another team which seem quite business oriented, only interested in people who want to work all hours/make partner. I feel like I am now being pushed out and the partner is making things up/exaggerating things and I am not being given enough work to keep utilisation up.

Should I leave or don’t go down without a fight? I joined in a very tricky time where they were struggling to recruit and I was thrown into the deep end with not much support.

I feel like I served the purpose, it is a different market and they just want young people who want to progress the career; they are not struggling to recruit anymore. They are also not interested in people who prioritise their family despite all what they say. They want people who want to give all to grow the business.

Sounds like my days are counted there. I enjoyed the first few years; It has been interesting; but the true colours are now showing. I am very proud to have survived there for so long considering I don’t come from clients facing roles and I was given little support. Also, I started quite late in my career life.

I wont confront them, I will continue to play their game, keep my head down and look for other opportunities.I was hoping I could stayed until retirement; job hunting and changing jobs is not easy but not much I can’t do.

You do sound naieve. I thought this was all well known. Ds1 is in the system now and is very aware of how it all entails.

Thanks. I have only experienced it now that my team moved into a bigger team; plus I didn’t start there as a graduate as most of them do.

I am sure with my experience I can get a better job, just need to think carefully my next move.

For those being pushed out how was the process? I imagine is a slow process where they start giving you no work or all the rubbish work, negative feedback, low performance reviews.

My DS has just been pushed out of a Big 4, he had 3 months of not being given much work then was offered a severance. The gist was accept this now and you get the money, turn down the offer and when it's on the table again the amount is likely to be less. So phrased as a choice but it wasn't really.

He's done 4 years as a grad so hopefully it's good for his CV as he is now job hunting! It's a ruthless environment

Correct. A severance package and asked to go away quietly. You CANNOT talk to anyone about it. It's in the contract. You can't sue them either.

Wondering how much that will be.

sorry to hear this also happened to your son; could you please give me an idea on how much he was offered? In terms of equivalent to monthly salaries? I have been similar time yo your son but higher position.

A few month's salary they go up to six months. Your lawyer will have to negotiate.

I am another ex-big4 and echoing what everyone else has said. You have plenty of options if you go into industry, particularly if you have previous industry experience (so can actually use an accounting system if necessary). Big 4 experience is valued pretty highly I've found and I am still finding mine useful 6+ years after leaving.

I have 10s of thousands of words of all the examples of dreadful things that happened while I worked there. I left without being pushed, I was young enough that I could do the stupid hours but I had no desire to. At my office they generally got people to leave by overloading them with so much work that they couldn't stay, rather than under supplying them with work, but I imagine it will just depend on the sector.

Didn’t realise I will need a lawyer?

If you get offered a settlement agreement, usually the firm will fund a certain sum for a solicitor to review the agreement. This is at least partially for their benefit - to make sure that you are fully informed so that the settlement agreement will stand up in court.

Thanks for the clarification. I will update how this ends. It is just the beginning atm; but I did notice something was a bit off until I spoke to my Partner recently and things became more clear.

I can honestly say it was the worst 2 years of my life. I preferred cleaning hotel rooms when I was a student. Such a toxic environment. My physical and mental health were shot to pieces.
I am freelance now and love work.
Get out while you can.

I could write pages on my experiences of toxic culture in Big4. Where I worked there was a lot of rhetoric about inclusivity, flexible working, work life balance etc but the reality was that the partners had no interest in anyone who was not willing to put work ahead of everything else. In my time there, this only got worse as the few partners who cared about their teams retired or left and the new leaders coming through wanted to push everyone more. For me it all seemed manageable until I had children and couldn't drop everything for work every time. I think it was telling most women who returned from maternity leave only stayed long enough to avoid having to pay back any mat pay. I wasn't just women who fell foul of this though. I remember once, as a manager, being reprimanded by my own line manager (who actually headed up a 'working parents' focus group) for agreeing to someone in my team leaving slightly early for a few days to visit his pregnant wife in hospital. Apparently if I allowed this whilst she was pregnant he would expect special treatment when he had a baby at home too and wouldn't ever do his job. Same line manager argued if anyone's partner was unhappy about them prioritising work, they should change their partner. He claimed that his ex-wife was 'difficult' about his working hours so he fixed his work/life balance by divorcing her, getting together with a younger woman from the office and leaving his ex to do all the childcare other than every other weekend (when his mum stepped in half the time).

Sorry to hear this, glad you got out and are enjoying your job.

My experience has not been so bad up to when we moved to current team. There have been stressful times and I was thrown into the deep end but I joined as a Manager and just thought it was the nature of the job and I found support from some of my colleagues within their time limitations. Everyone is trying to survive and do their job, the majority of the people in my immediate team are lovely.

I have met some young, hard working ambitious people and I was given autonomy and flexibility. I am grateful for the experience and can’t say everything has been bad; some good benefits and perks too. I thought I could stay until retirement.

The culture on current team is pretty much as everyone else describes it, up or out and they are mandating days in the office. It depends a lot on the partners on each team.

Where I was, the average age was under 35. Once people got older, saw the light, had other priorities in their lives, they soon got fed up of the crap we were putting up with.

That is shocking

Yes, the majority of older people are either Director or Partner level. Everyone else is in their 20s or earlier 30s. For the majority that is all they know, as they started straight after university.

I had been freelance for a couple of years before, then accepted this. I lasted 2 years only. I used to leave the office on Friday and dread the countdown to Monday. Hated it.

It should have shocked me, but at the time it seemed like par for the course. As you can imagine, the focus group headed by this person (who claimed to be a single parent and therefore best placed to understand the stresses of working families) concluded that basically most women returning from maternity leave found they were not as ambitious as before so they chose to leave to do something less demanding. I suspect that he was given the role so that they could tick the a box but knowing that the group would not find any problem with the business culture.
I know that if ever anyone complained about work-life balance, or mentioned this in exit interviews etc, they were talked about as not being able to cope/not made of the right stuff etc so people were very wary of bringing any of this up.

My DH is Big 4, senior. Loves his work so does not mind living and breathing his work. Also loves his family. From what I see with big four and partners in similar professional firms firms ultimately you need to be rapacious and competitive and want to achieve incredible commercial results. And frankly given the salary you will almost certainly be on and salary potential there is an expectation that there will be out of hours working. I’ve never seen my DH NOT do some work on a family holiday. The whole place would fall apart if people were clockwatchers and thought the place was there to fund their lifestyle.

Finally, you don’t get to plateau unless you have some fantastic technical skill. You need to be very careful. The economy is contracting and partners and employees at one of the big 4 have already been let go.

Things you could do:

• Not just wait for work to be handed to you (you’re sounding a bit passive), but instead identify the work givers and go to them and ask what can I do for you/ get involved in?
• Reflect on the feedback you are receiving. You’re clearly somehow not hitting the mark. If this team is a lot more commercial , and you’re actually seeing that, what do you also need to do to hit the right level?
• Are you sufficiently engaged and interested in your career, and your area of speciality? If not, what could you do to supercharge your passions there?
• By getting involved in something else, and with partners peripheral to your team, that could lead to potential to move to a different area or team of the business

Thank you. I have asked numerous time for work and informed more senior members of my capacity; I don’t think that is the issue.

Agree it is a very different market now to when I joined and they are not having issues recruiting.

I have been talking to other people and looking for other opportunities within their firm.

I agree reg not hitting the mark though, as this means putting lots of extra hours, weekends and holiday work which I am not doing. If i have a deadline though I do ensure we deliver on time and I have done additional time during the week but not on the weekends or holidays.

the partners want to grow that part of the business and trying to get rid of people who are not willing to work all hours and help grow the business and their career. They won’t say this of course but it is obvious. I am not the only one being pushed out.

ExBigFive here. I wonder why you are even considering 'putting up a fight'. What is there to fight about? It's no secret that the business is about generating sales.

Being good at your role is a prerequisite, success comes only really from generating and repeat business.

The pathways are to work flat out on the partner track, spend some time there to build your reputation and network or get out. Which one were you expecting to follow?

Do yourself a favour, get yourself a new role which is more suitable for the stage of life you are currently in.

Senior enough to commission work and let the partners work hard to get your business.