Prioritizing our people

Over the past two years, we’ve all experienced a great deal and life has become more complicated. I recall my days as a young auditor juggling the responsibilities of work and raising young children together with my wife, who had an equally busy career as a pharmacist, and wonder how we would have managed if we were facing into today’s challenges.

I believe part of my job is to build support systems that help our people when they need it most. I am so proud of our agility in creating timely programs and benefits that gave our people additional time-off to deal with COVID-19, enhanced parental and caregiver support, educational support for children, easier access to telehealth, and much more. So, this year, we reflected on what worked and what else we can do, always asking one question: “How do we make the complicated simple?” Or more concretely, how do we give our people the flexibility they need?

Today, we announced numerous enhancements to KPMG’s benefits and compensation package focused on mental, physical, social and financial well-being.

For our people’s health:?We will reduce employee health care premiums by 10% in 2022, with no change in the benefit levels, and introduce health care advocacy services. With health care inflation projected to be 6% next year, this represents savings of 16% for our plan participants.

For their future:?We will replace our current KPMG 401(k) match and pension programs with a single, automatic firm-funded contribution within the 401(k) plan equal to 6–8% of eligible W-2 pay. The new plan will feature market-leading flexibility as all employees will receive the contribution without any requirement to contribute their own money.

For their families:?We will provide up to three weeks of additional paid caregiver leave, separate and apart from PTO, for employees to spend time caring for a member of their family or household with a serious health condition, including time to grieve the loss of a loved one. In addition, we will offer two new caregiver concierge programs that can help our professionals navigate a wide range of needs.

For new parents:?All parents will receive 12 weeks of paid parental leave to bond with a newborn, newly-adopted or new foster care child, regardless of who the primary caregiver is. Under the former program, we provided six weeks for primary caregivers and two weeks for non-primary caregivers. This is in addition to disability leave for employees who give birth, allowing some employees at the firm up to 22 weeks of paid leave.

For all: Without daily commutes to the office, the boundary between our work and personal lives has become even more blurred. Twice per year we take a firm-wide break, giving our people at least nine consecutive days to disconnect and spend time with family and friends. These shutdowns are part of an expanding holiday calendar that now provides 16 paid holidays per year, including Juneteenth. These firmwide holidays complement a generous PTO program, “no camera Fridays,” and no internal meetings on Wednesday afternoons.

For each other: We’ve increased the ways our people can recognize each other’s extraordinary achievements with financial awards, electronic gift cards and experience-based rewards.

It’s critical that these enhancements are bolstered by a culture of empathy, care and inclusion. I’m proud that KPMG is a place that fosters this behavior.

As a firm, we grow best when our people are growing too. And we’re committed to continuing to invest in KPMG’s extraordinary people – their careers, their future, their well-being and their families.?