- Deloitte is incorporating office attendance into performance reviews for its U.S. tax practice, requiring employees to be in-person two to three days a week, in contrast to its wider flexible hybrid policy. This move follows policy actions by other Big Four firms like PwC and EY, and more widely moves by companies like Google which also folded office attendance into performance metrics.
Site sign-ins are being folded into performance reviews at Big Four firm Deloitte, meaning office attendance is now among the bonus criteria for a portion of staff.
“Being present at a Deloitte office or client site will now be considered in your … performance evaluations,” Deloitte wrote in a message to U.S. tax staff seen by the Financial Times.
Staff in this team should “ensure in-person collaboration 2-3 days (50%) weekly” the email continued.
Mandating in-person days is something of a shift from the policy Deloitte employs with the majority of its 460,000-strong staff.
The consultancy, audit and financial services firm made its hybrid working policy official three years ago and has been a flexible employer since 2014.
Per its own website, Deloitte adds: “The golden rule of our hybrid policy is that our people are trusted to decide how they work, in a way that works for their clients and colleagues too.
“We’ve seen the benefits of keeping the flexibility of hybrid and remote working without losing the opportunities to connect and collaborate in-person.”
Deloitte did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment about whether its staffers across the board can expect to have office or client site attendance added to their performance reviews.
However, it told the FT that the policy “pertains only to our U.S. Tax practice.”
A comment from a spokesperson added: “Deloitte performs a tremendous range of work for our clients across many industries. Our hybrid model is not one-sized-fits-all.
“Our model is designed for clients, businesses, team leaders and professionals to co-locate when it matters most to the performance of our work and the development and wellbeing of our professionals.”
The business isn’t the first to integrate office attendance with performance metrics. Google began the practice in 2023, telling staff that their three-day office weeks would be noted in their reviews.
Deloitte’s two-day mantra is also lower than counterparts on Wall Street, for example, where the likes of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have pulled their staffers back in five days a week.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said staff can find work elsewhere if the mandate doesn’t suit their lifestyle and priorities.
Big Four changes
While Deloitte might be changing the policy for a portion of its staffers, Big Four peer EY reportedly let go of some of its staff after they were discovered to be attending simultaneous training events.
Every year staff at EY are asked to take part in the Ignite Learning Week, as they are required to do a certain number of courses to accrue credit points for them to progress at the company.
However, in October last year EY discovered that some staff were attending courses at the same time and gaining double points as a result.
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The employees who were unceremoniously let go added they weren’t attending two sessions at once to accumulate the credits faster, insisting it was because they didn’t want to miss out on simultaneous sessions.
They added that the company has a culture of multitasking and that they didn’t want to miss any sessions because of scheduling conflicts.
Likewise, fellow Big Four firm PwC informed staff late last year that it, too, would begin monitoring their in-office attendance.
In September the accountancy firm informed its 26,000 U.K. employees that from January 2025 they were expected to be at their desks—or with clients—at least three days a week, or for 60% of their time.
To ensure these standards were being kept PwC said it would begin monitoring office visits in the same way it tracks billable hours.
Additionally workers were told they would be sent—on a monthly basis—their ‘individual working location data’ which would also be shared with their internal career coaches.
