NOVEMBER 6, 2023 — 200 EMPLOYEES TARGETED
Responding to an economic slowdown, Grant Thornton is laying off 200 people in its second round of layoffs in the past six months.
According to a spokesperson, “The staffing changes reflect pockets of underutilization in limited business segments and specialty areas that the firm is exiting due to market trends. We continue to invest in higher-growth areas of the business to better serve our clients. ”
JUNE 8, 2023 — Original post…
Chicago-based Grant Thornton, the sixth-largest professional services firm offering accountancy and consultancy services, has announced a 3% reduction in its workforce.
Approximately 300 U.S. employees will be impacted, mainly concentrated in the advisory and tax divisions.
According to a company-wide email...
We’re writing today to inform you about difficult but necessary decisions that the Senior Leadership Team has made in response to changing market conditions. Over the next several days, we will reduce the number of roles in certain areas of the business. We will also re-allocate budget and capacity from parts of the business where growth has slowed to areas where growth is accelerating. These changes will be targeted and limited in scope.
As you are all aware, the economy has slowed in recent months. Macro-economic conditions have had varying degrees of impact across all parts of our business, reducing demand for some of our services – particularly in some of our consulting-focused businesses that may represent discretionary spend for clients.
Grant Thornton is not alone in facing this reality. Yet, unlike peers, our revenue growth had been strong through March versus the prior fiscal year thanks to the superb client service our team delivers. We also took proactive steps over the past several months to mitigate the effects of the slowing economy by tightening expense controls and aggressively pursuing new business. While we were cautiously optimistic that these actions would be enough to support continued investment in growth areas through this downturn, it is now clear that we need to do more.
The reductions we’ll make this week will be across our firm at varying levels. They were carefully considered and analyzed by our Senior Leadership Team, ensuring personnel changes are as targeted and limited in scope as possible. We are also taking every opportunity to minimize the number of impacted colleagues by redirecting teammates to apply for open roles in growing areas of the firm.
To conclude, we’d like to focus on two key points.
First, we will lean into our values and our culture as we go through a difficult process with some of our teammates this week. While this will be a challenging week for the entire firm, we should never forget that it will be most difficult for the teammates who will be directly impacted.
These professionals have given their best to our firm, and they have added value to our team. They deserve, and will receive, our full respect and utmost care as we help them transition to their next professional opportunity. We will be providing severance benefits including salary continuation and professional outplacement services to help each individual identify their next career opportunity as soon as possible.
Second, these steps we are taking will enable us to advance our strategy and achieve the same goals we’ve talked about: namely, continued investment in growth, serving clients with value and quality, and providing teammates with professional development opportunities.
To our colleagues who will learn this week if you are impacted by these reductions, thank you for all you have done for Grant Thornton and the firm’s clients. We hold each of you in the highest regard and we will support you through this process.
With our deepest gratitude.
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?
