PwC’s new pitch to employees: ‘You are our customer’

In this ongoing war for talent, one thing is clear—employees have the upper hand. From compensation to culture, employers are trying to keep employees happy.

PwC announced today a new initiative for U.S. employees called My+ People Experience. The professional services firm is making a $2.4 billion investment over three years in technology, benefits, and employee wellness. The initiative intends for employees to make “customer-like choices,” and build a personalized experience for their career journey on a technology platform.

“Let’s say someone joins us and says, ‘I want to spend two years doing audit work, two years doing cyber work, and two years doing M&A work;’ we’re going to create a curated experience,” Neil Dhar, vice chair and U.S. consulting solutions co-leader at PwC, told me. “Right off the bat, we’re gonna tell our employees, ‘You are our customer. We’re here to serve you. If you want differentiated experiences, to build out that resume of yours, we’re all here to support you.'”

A “big chunk” of the investment is going toward “ensuring we have the right technology to do all those things,” Dhar says. “This is the continued digitization of our firm,” he says.

As part of the My+ investment, “we’re giving our people two weeklong firm-wide shutdowns in the U.S. with pay,” he says. “One week in July and one in December.” The firm will continue to offer the choice of working in-person or a virtual or hybrid schedule, he says. This firm is also expanding parental leave from 8 to 12 weeks.

This year, PwC gave a 5% mid-year increase to everyone across the firm, and effective July 1, will have annual base salary increases, according to Dhar. That also includes a fully-funded bonus pool this year, he says. As the Great Resignation continues, many companies have focused on compensation and bonuses to retain employees.  However, they’re still quitting. A record number of people quit their jobs in March—4.5 million, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Tuesday. 

I asked Dhar if the bonuses and salary increases are working. “Yes, it’s working,” he says. “But it’s probably working at the same level as anyone else.” However, “it’s hard, if not impossible, to just sustainably compete on compensation and benefits,” Dhar says.

“I think things like giving people a virtual [work] option, like we did last year, that’s a had real differentiated impact,” he explains. “What we’re trying to do here with My+ is to create that individual work experience and actually upskill and make our leaders better leaders. We think if the experience is better, people will be happier. And they’ll stay longer, which is obviously a business objective of ours.”

Have a good weekend. See you on Monday

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Big deal

Lever, a talent acquisition suite, has released The State of Internal Mobility Report in partnership with Aptitude Research. The report examines how the investment in internal mobility has changed and what are the challenges. The top challenge cited by respondents is companies worry that if internal candidates do not get the job offer, they will leave (48%). And most companies are not incentivizing or motivating recruiters to support internal mobility, the report found. "We found that key drivers forcing companies to prioritize internal mobility has become a critical part of talent acquisition teams' responsibility," Madeline Laurano, founder of Aptitude Research, said in a statement.

Going deeper

In case you missed it, here’s what was featured in CFO Daily this week:

A behind-the-scenes look at Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition

That big bonus isn’t keeping your workers from quitting

War games are preparing MBA students for strategic battles

Leaderboard

Some notable moves this week:

Tom vonReichbauer was named CFO at ICON, a construction technology company, effective June 1. Most recently, vonReichbauer was the CFO of Sunrun, a provider of residential solar, storage and energy services. Prior to Sunrun, he served in a variety of roles at Nest (and subsequently Google via Nest’s acquisition) including CFO and chief business officer. vonReichbauer previously held management roles in the finance organization at Tesla from 2008 into 2013. He worked at Ford Motor Company prior to Tesla.

Eric Carre was named CFO at Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL). Lance Loeffler, currently EVP and CFO, will assume the role of SVP of the company’s Middle East North Africa region, effective immediately. Carre most recently served as EVP of global business lines, and chief health, safety and environment officer at Halliburton. He brings more than 30 years of experience to the position of CFO.

Tom Fuelling was named CFO at TuneIn, a live streaming audio service. Fuelling has more than 25 years of experience working for media and technology companies. Prior to joining TuneIn, Fuelling served as CFO for Hulu, OpenX, ARTISTdirect and most recently, Spokeo, Inc., among others. Fuelling was involved in the launch of Hulu Plus, the company’s subscription product. 

Drew Plisco was named CFO at ATP, a provider of information services and software for the aviation industry. Plisco brings 15 years of finance experience. Before joining ATP, he served as CFO of Holon Solutions and Infutor Data Solutions, as well as held other senior leadership positions at Sage Group plc, First Advantage, and SAP. As the new CFO, Plisco will lead ATP’s global finance organization and financial activities.

Andrew Kang was named senior EVP and CFO at MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), effective on or about May 9. Phong Le will continue serving as MicroStrategy’s CFO until Kang’s start date, after which Le will continue as MicroStrategy’s president. Kang previously served as EVP and CFO of Greensky, Inc. Prior to Greensky, Kang served as corporate treasurer for Santander Holdings USA, and EVP for Santander Consumer USA. Previously, he held positions at Exeter Finance, HSBC Finance, Capital One and Thomson Reuters.

Ammar Rizki was named EVP and CFO at the Obama Foundation. Rizki will start his position in mid-June. Rizki served as the CFO of Cook County since 2017 having previously served as deputy CFO for almost four years. Prior to joining Cook County, Rizki held a number of managerial and analytic roles in banking and investment management.

Kristen Shults was promoted to SVP and CFO at Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: WES), effective on May 2. Shults joined Western Midstream in 2019 as VP of investor relations and communications, and most recently served as SVP of finance and sustainability. Shults served in various roles of increasing responsibility with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s tax organization, and began her career at Ernst & Young, LLP.

Kirby Toolan was named CFO at RW Capital Partners, Inc. (“RW Partners”). Toolan comes to RW Partners with over a decade of experience in financial management, business leadership and strategy. She was previously senior manager in reporting and analysis at Comcast Corporation. Prior to Comcast, she was an audit manager in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Private Company Services practice.

Overheard

"There’s a clear business case for sharing concise long-term plans about a company’s purpose journey. Companies with a strong corporate purpose tend to outperform those without it."

—Daryl Brewster, CEO of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose, wrote in a Fortune opinion piece.