Today’s mass email from now former PwC employee regarding regarding discrimination in the workplace - posting in comments

likehelpful
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I’m a white woman and had to exit PA because leadership kept moving the goal posts on me. IMO they treated me different than the men. The worst thing about PA is the lack of transparency for promotions and the fact leadership can tell you whatever they want and never have to abide it.

likehelpfulsmart

Very true. Anyone defending the promotion process immediately loses credibility in my mind. It’s very flawed and inherently pretty arbitrary. In the end people who are “well liked” by the leadership of the teams they work with get promoted faster. Often this is not a bad thing, but if you’ve never seen the bad implications of this first hand you likely don’t have a ton of experience or are fairly narrow minded.

likesmartfunny

We all know the Big 4 has a systemic issue with ageism. It is not a far stretch to believe there is a lot of truth in the email. PwC and the other Big Four fell over themselves to out woke each other but a lot of people just pay lip service to the change so they're not canceled. PwC created some type of CEO Action Committee to advocate for societal change on race. They didn't look inward but chose to preach outward and soak up the faux woke applause while forcing compliance to lip service by employees.

likesmarthelpful

Yup

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EMAIL:

Dear friends and colleagues,

Unfortunately, today is my last day at the firm. Many of you have reached out to me over the past few months, but I have not responded to your notes. This is not because I have fallen out of our friendship, but because I have lost faith in what our firm stands for. And here is why. Our firm discriminated against me by repeatedly denying me a promotion because I am a Black woman who was not born in the US. When I complained about this discrimination, the firm retaliated against me which culminated in my termination today. I have shared my story below and hope you will take the time to read it.   

About 12 months ago, as our country and the world experienced a social movement and reckoning over racism, our leaders seized every opportunity to tell us that they were rallying behind the end of race discrimination, in particular in the workplace. At the same time, however, they were also denying me the promotion to Director for the third time because of my race, color, national origin, and sex.

The Partners and Directors team that helped me prepare my case worked with me to escalate this injustice at top levels of our firm. Every single leader - FS Diversity & Inclusion Leader, FS Leader, Strategy& Leader and a few more - chose to look the other way and protect the other few Partners who had been using untruthful facts to misrepresent my performance and relationships with clients during CRTs in May 2019, November 2019, and May 2020.

Behind the façade of its outward messaging regarding diversity, inclusion, and antidiscrimination, PwC fosters a work culture that stifles the development of Black, female, and non-native born employees, preventing them from achieving promotions and advancing within the Firm. This comes as no surprise when we look at the composition of the PwC leadership team, which fosters a discriminatory culture.

• The U.S. leadership team, comprised of 19 members, is staffed with only one Black woman and two Black men. 

• The U.S. Board of Partners, comprised of 22 members, has only one Black man among its members. 

• As for Strategy&, there is only one Black man and not a single woman amongst 23 global leaders. 

Aren’t we religiously telling our clients that effective diversity and inclusion starts at the top? Aren’t we telling our executive clients that they have to walk the talk to lead real cultural change? So why is it that we keep talking the talk and placing our “efforts” in programs that do not drive any real change in the status of Black people at this firm?  As someone who specializes in culture and gives this very advice to our clients, I find myself unable to escape this dissonance between what I tell them to do and what I know PwC has failed to do internally.

As of the third discriminatory denial of my promotion, I was the only Black left within FS Strategy&’s non-leadership team. As one Partner put it at the time “you are the last one standing”. Why is it that being Black at this firm has to be a constant uphill battle to prove that you deserve your seat? Why is it that I have had to consistently wait 1-2 more years on average to get the acknowledgements and promotions that my peers have gotten, when I keep bringing stellar performance reviews into CRTs?

This is to say that discrimination has been a reality for me for a long time, and has simply reached the point where my constant optimism can no longer make sense out of it. It has been a toxic force that does everything it can to:

• Take away your dignity

• Make you feel weak

• Portray you as a poor performer and third-class consultant

• Prevent you from bringing your authentic self to work; it’s not enough to be a great team player and high performer, you have to put “who you are” to the side - remind me what D&I is again?!

• Push you out of the firm, because not even our leaders would stand up to do the right thing

During the May 2020 social movement, one Partner reached out to me, after being summoned to, saying “Murielle, I read Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird”. What?! To every non-Black Partner and staff at this firm, we do not need you to tell us about the Black stories or authors that you’re reading or the Black friends that you have or the African countries you have visited. What we need is for you to demonstrate true empathy when you see unfairness being done to a Black employee. STAND up, SPEAK up, CALL out. Call out colleagues on the offenses they’re perpetrating. I would not be in this position, feeling I must speak up and call out PwC’s hypocrisy to all of you, if the Partners in the CRT room had spoken up and called out their peers when they saw them derail the process for my CRT reviews which led to a biased outcome.

That offenders rarely get held accountable goes beyond the fact that our Partners and leaders sadly do not speak up when they should. The Firm continuously protects those offenders, leaving more Black, female, and other minority employees at their mercy. How, you may wonder? Go take a look at the contract PwC made you sign.

PwC forces employees to sign binding arbitration agreements that rob them of their ability to have their day in court and to publicly call out PwC’s discriminatory, retaliatory, and other unlawful conduct. As a result, it is no surprise that PwC makes little to no change to its policies, procedures, and practices despite the multiple cases that have been filed for discrimination and retaliation. 

I will leave you with this. Sexual harassment used to be hidden under such “keep it secret” arbitration agreements until the MeToo movement. Many leading companies, including Google and PwC, excluded it from the arbitration agreement as a result of social pressure. This being said, Google also excluded “Race Discrimination” from its arbitration agreements, recognizing how much hiding discrimination at work behind the veil of confidential arbitration hindered the career advancement of Black employees. Why is it that our firm, a leader in its own territory, claiming to be a leader for our cross-industry national and global clients, cannot take the same simple step when it comes to ending racism and discrimination in the workplace? How much longer would our leaders turn away from doing the right thing to protect themselves if they knew they could be held publicly accountable? When will they finally do something that actually moves the needle and makes this firm a place where Black and other minorities don’t have to do three times more to prove their worth?

Dear colleagues and friends, I have enjoyed working with many of you and wish you the best of luck. Hopefully we can stay in touch.  

In good hope,
Murielle

likefunnyhelpfuluplifting

GOAT thing to do!!!!

like

This email does not provide one example of her being discriminated against.

A lot of people were not promoted in May 2020. Mid-year promotion is the exception - I can’t recall the last time someone made director at mid year in my group.

This persons email is just one very long complaint that says she is entitled to being promoted. She doesn’t say that five white men were promoted at the same time she was rejected: she doesn’t say anyone made racial comments surrounding her promotion. I don’t know why people are so outraged on her behalf.

We need more diversity in leadership, but that has no bearing on her readiness to be promoted or on her business case.

likesmarthelpfulfunny

Have to agree. The whole letter sounds like she was expected to be promoted because she's a black female. There was a mention that she was a good performer but there's so much more that goes into promotions. Granted, I also see white men getting promoted for virtually nothing, so that's that.

likesmart

I am Asian and was with PwC for 15 years as a manager. Throughout the years, I never had a mentor and never trusted any coaches or RP. Coming from a mutual insurance company, where there was a sense of community and colleagues genuinely do help each other to PwC that is highly competitive and everyone is out for themselves. Hired after age 40 and older, not on partner track, it is easy to leave me out for a promotion. When I left, the off boarding process is cold and without any human interaction, an app that required me to watch a bunch of videos, signed a bunch of forms and turned it my lab top at last day. Being Asian and older, I cannot say I felt a nurturing experience but that PwC did minimally to help my career and I felt I constantly have to prove myself and worked extra hard. I don’t hold any grudges but I also don’t feel it is a place that I would recommend.

likehelpfulsmart

PwC19 - I am truly sorry you have felt this way and have had to go through these feelings for so long, there is no reasonable explanation for that and there should never be. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences so that others in similar positions can see it’s not an isolated situation. As a Latino who just started my A3 year and have no one I can related to +/-2 years within my start class age, I can confidently say that things are significantly more difficultly and work is becomes unbearable until a breaking point. Stay strong and I hope you have found happiness

like

Not a lot of specifics to go on there. Here for the drama though ☕️

likefunny

Yeah it does make you wonder about the small group of people that determine your future. Also here for ☕️

likefunny

I have zero doubt there are discrimination in the firm, as evidenced by the make up of the firm’s top leadership. I have no doubt she experienced a lot discriminations along the way, sometimes it’s hard to give an example like an actual racist comment made by anyone, but that doesn’t mean she’s didn’t suffer from discrimination. However this email achieves very little. If local leadership supports her, I doubt national leadership denied purely out of race. Systematic discrimination is systematic, not only at the top. Also personally as a minority I don’t like this approach. If I have to perform better to get promoted because of my race, I’ll do it. I will help the others behind me after I move up. I do not ask for things, anything coming from begging will only be as good as they are willing to give, not as good as we deserve

likefunny

As a black person we do have bad stereotypes like wanting handouts (welfare) and many more because of the brand hip hop culture and other things gives us that we have to prove that don’t make up who we are but a lot of times people can tell if you are a true professional or have class by the way you carry yourself.

Putting the blame externally is very immature and a self sabotage. Even if what she said had a bit of merit, I’m sure it’s not the full picture.

At the end of the day, politics exist and it’s up to us to be strategic and calculated to get where we want to be.

like

Too many people focusing on whether she should have actually been promoted or not. The reality is the issues she raised are valid and worthy of discussion.

like

Too many people focused on the actual merits of her complaint? Interesting position.

likefunnyhelpful

Let’s not forget the pancake/waffle brain debacle that EY had with absolutely zero consequences.

likefunnysmart

I was just thinking about this the other day (talking w someone who asked which B4 they should consider being the memory jog) and how there were sadly no consequences :(

She’s aiming for directorship where experience alone isn’t the determining factor for the promotion. It’s not like associate level where 3 years and you’re pretty much guaranteed the senior role; there’s more to it at that level. Unfortunately her email doesn’t give much specifics as to her background.

I remember my time at PwC talking to one senior manager (before the change in directorship structure) where a person she started with was promoted to partner 3 full years before her mainly because the other person was in commercial whilst she was in financial services. There wasn’t a need for another FS partner at that time but once client portfolio began picking up, she did get the partnership 3 years later. There’s business need, there’s people skills, there’s selling skills, etc. (which I’m sure you already knew about).

likefunny

PA hides the ball in explaining to people that past manager, promotions are primarily about business need. It’s a helpful myth to tell new associates the key to success is skills and hard work, but frankly that is just table stakes once you’re at the manager level. Too many people continue to labor under this illusion surprisingly late in their career and get very frustrated as a result.

likefunny

Fascinating. Well, disagree with how she went about it but it's out there now. I think a lot of people are quick to use the words discrimination and racism these days(easy for me to say as a WM). I guess in my head its borderline slander without any proof of discrimination... so that's my problem with this whole situation. But I know most of y'all will disagree and probably say I'm racist as well for requiring proof of discrimination and disagreeing with her methods. Anywaysssss... |touchdown Cubs| go sports!

likefunnysmart

Corporate “wokism” coming back to bite them lol

likesmartfunny

Firm response so far:

Evening all--

I am writing about an email which you may have received today from a former PwC US employee regarding her time at the firm that was sent to an internal distribution list. We are aware of the former employee’s concerns and we are addressing them. Please know we take all allegations of firm policy violations seriously.

Out of respect for the privacy of all parties involved, we are unable to discuss specific details of this matter. However, we continue to encourage our employees to raise any concerns that they may have by speaking with a member of our People team or by contacting our confidential Ethics HelpLine, anonymously if preferred. PwC strictly prohibits retaliation against anyone for raising concerns in good faith.

If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact the Ethics HelpLine. Thank you.

Denis

Denis J Clarke
PwC | Managing Director, Ethics & Business Conduct
Ethics & Compliance

likefunnysmart

No, they ran to the offending parties and battened down the hatches so that if you were to do anything about it they'd be ready.

likefunny

In my career, I got comments like "in this country", "where you come from may XYZ" and "from where is your accent" and etc, these comments came from partners, it could be unintentional this is why I didn't make it a big deal, but this also means unintentional bias exist when it comes to promotions. This is not only based on race but even which state, origins, ethnicity, religion and etc. I have seen it but it is hard to point it out. Good for her she said what is inside her heart out loud, and her email may help other people get what they deserve - I know I don't have the courage to do it.

like

I completely agree with you. I hate words “in this country” and “where you come from may zzz” it implies that another country is second class and need to work more harder to prove that they are worth for promotion.

If this employee was discriminated against, I hope consequences are quick and severe. No discrimination - by anyone against anyone (regardless of how it’s packaged or spun)- is acceptable.

likehelpful

And there is me, who doesn’t even want a promotion! 🙄

funnylike

Non-discrimination won’t mean minorities should get additional benefits though. They should be promoted if equally qualified as another non-minority promotee, but being a minority should not be used as a bump for less qualified candidates. Hard to tell which is the real case from her email, since it lacks concrete evidence.

likesmart

Looks like she has 8 years of experience at Strategy& and an analyst job at a foreign country prior (not hard to figure out who she is). Per Strategy&’s website, the typical ladder is 3 years at each level: assoc, senior, and manager before director. So she would have had a shot at directorship on year 10. Sure she may take credit for her 4-year analyst at said foreign country and take a year or two off but it doesn’t sound like she was skipped many years of promotions. There’s a business-need and other checklist items at that level, you can’t just keep promoting everyone after x amount of years.

Pure conjecture of course unless she got early promoted numerous times but the years experience doesn’t seem to be far off. Not saying there was no bias, I’m just looking at the numbers.

likesmart

I really don't like the thought that I could work for years and then not be promoted to partner. Probably the main reason that I'm on the way out. If I succeed or fail I want it to be my fault, not someone else.

like

Big 4 isn’t the government where time served frequently equals promotion. It is skills based- can you sell work and provide outstanding client service. Industry isn’t that way either- just because you are there forever doesn’t mean you will be VP of Tax. Not a very mature perspective- work is competitive and so promotion will always involve the business, the talent of others and your talent too.

likesmart

Just want to follow this to see what happens

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