A major issue facing the top four consultancy companies, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC India), KPMG India, Deloitte and Ernst and Young (EY India) amid the COVID-19 crisis is their own revenues. These companies offer audit services to the top Indian companies and with the industry requesting for the financial year to be extended, they see their audit work getting completed much later and their payments being released even after that. They will have to meanwhile sustain with meeting all their expenses, of which salaries and benefits to employees form the major part. So, one of the key decisions being made is to hold back performance appraisals, internal promotions and increments, as per a report in the LiveMint.
These may be done later once it all settles down. The other would be to put off any fresh recruitments for the time being, again, subject to review later. In many cases, the seniors, generally going by the title Partners, are trying to reduce their own pay packages, possibly foregoing some of the bonuses and incentives.
Deloitte India is reported to have conferred with its employees on how the crisis situation is being handled to bring in some kind of transparency.
In the case of PwC India, their objective would be to first ensure that they are not forced to go into any manpower reduction or pruning.
Many of these companies have already released the salaries to their employees for the month of March, 2020. They are also admitting that they are concerned about the situation when the April salaries become payable because they don’t see much inflow in the interim.
Major consultancy organisations are hired by large companies to advise them, among other things, on how to manage their human resources, including compensation packages and appraisal mechanisms. Now, it's the turn of the consultancy companies themselves to be looking inward, as the worldwide impact due to the coronavirus could affect each one of them.