A communiqué from last week, "Caleb, I believe comp discussions are taking place at McGladrey." So I asked around and yes, it appears to be true. In fact they started awhile ago. From deep inside Mickey G's:
Some people from my office started having discussions about 2 weeks ago. One guy being promoted from staff to senior, who received a 4 rating, received a 8.5% raise. I was promoted from Senior to Supervisor, received a 5 rating, so I received a 13% raise and $3,500 bonus.
Last month we opened a thread on your salaries and your response was impressive. Just for fun, we found some poor soul to crunch some of the numbers so that we might share some information on the data we gathered.
We’ll start off with a post facing off the Big 4 salary against non-Big 4 salary. Here are the average salaries for each based on the data we collected:
• Non-Big 4 – $72,136
• Big 4 – $71,166
If you getting worked up over less than a $1,000 difference, then you’re more shrewd than we imagined. For the more reasonable of you, the discussion is, what are the unmentionables here? Both Big 4 and non-Big 4 firms have their advantages and many of you have made the jump from Big 4 to non-Big 4; non-Big 4 to Big 4; Big 4 to non-Big 4 back to Big 4, whatever.
A popular argument is that the Big 4 work experience is irreplaceable on a resumé but is it? Will potential employers really pick someone with a Big 4 background the majority of the time?
Most people would agree that auditing is auditing and the tax law is the same no matter where you work. Smaller firms have just a many unique clients as large firms so there’s experience to be gained everywhere.
Now before you start shouting, “if you want a job at a Fortune 500 company, blah, blah, blah” how many of those jobs are really out there? Enough so that everyone that has left a Big 4 firm will be able to find a job? Let’s not pretend we all have the same ambitions here.
Just last week we learned that compensation discussions at McGladrey were going to be occurring in the coming days and weeks and it appears things got rolling right away and there are even some numbers to report:
We just received correspondence from national regarding our Firms performance and a cryptic breakdown regarding upcoming comp discussions [memo after the jump].
Furthermore, they have begun the comp discussion process in the southeast. Apparently the partners received official compensation breakdowns for each employee either Wednesday or Thursday of this past week. A newly promoted senior i their discussion already and he received a 11% raise and $1k bonus.
To circle back to correspondence from C.E., I think it’s particularly insulting that he mentioned that “this year, as in previous years, we will continue to follow a “pay-for-performance” approach when it comes to individual compensation”; Interesting how there were people who received 5s last year who received a 0% raise in 2009, and those promoted received what amount to an inflation adjusted raise-just under 4%.
So 11%/1%? Thoughts anyone? If you’ve received your numbers, report below.
It’s also worth noting the following from C to the E and Dave Scudder, “In spite of a very weak economy, we held our own. We had several unique one-time charges that impacted our profitability (see Rene’s financial update on The Point for more details). Without these, our pre-tax margin would have been essentially flat with last year.”
So “we had a pretty solid year if you ignore a few major things,” is more or less an echo from the H&R Block press release that we saw late last month. In case you forgot, those one-time charges include costs associated with the little divorce and reconciliation between RSM McGladrey and McGladrey & Pullen as well as a goodwill impairment charge.
Despite the tough year, leadership assures everyone that the good times will continue to roll at Mickey G’s, “You’ve seen a number of exciting announcements in the last month, and let us assure you that the good news is going to keep coming.” In other words, more golfers that aren’t Natalie Gulbis and plenty of refreshments.