| Topic Name: |
Accenture Pre-IPO Partners Leave a Legacy of Greed |
| Message Name: |
Accenture No Longer Reflects My Values - Part 1 |
| Date Posted: |
03/14/2006 |
| Message: |
Well, it??s been over 4 1/2 years since our partners decided to go public. How are we (nonpre-IPO partners) doing? Hindsight has really clarified the purpose of the IPO and probably gives us some insight into why the partners decided to go public. There is no question that the IPO has destroyed our culture along with thousands of careers. Partners, on the other hand, have made out like bandits laughing all the way to the bank.
I have worked for two of our competitors and joined ACN about 6 years ago thinking that I could build a better career here. Partners told me that they were going public for what seemed to be good reasons. They wanted to build equity so they could bid on large contracts. That hasn??t happened much from what I can see but they have accumulated $3+ billion, much of it at our expense. They said they wanted to give employees an ??ownership stake?? in the company only to insult us by giving us less than 5% which is much less than what most companies give employees. And of course, they told us that the culture would not change after the IPO. Well, we??re still finding out how big a lie that was. Oh, and remember all the partners complaining about how their salaries would go down to about $500,000 per year. Of course they didn??t tell us how many millions in equity they would be raking in (paying only the capital gains rate of 15% on that windfall). We??ve learned it??s all about their wallets. Do you know that the pre-IPO partners made more with last December's dividend distribution than APs make in an entire year? Great Christmas present, huh?
The partners ignored the fact that most people prefer to work for private companies. They ignored the fact that employees would never have the same opportunities as the pre-IPO partners. They ignored that the interests of the pre-IPO partners would not be aligned as closely with those of employees giving rise to our new and ever more apparent win-lose culture. The partners who have the deck stacked in their favor are winning and we employees are losing. They probably also thought it would all blow over soon enough because attention spans are short and they would create a climate of urgency to divert attention away from what they were doing. Of course, today they deny any responsibility for what has happened, blaming it all on the economy and telling us to work even harder...
Continued in Part 2
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