DTZ today revealed a series of ‘painful and difficult but necessary’ cost-cutting initiatives in the UK, which will involve redundancies and for senior staff pay cuts and a freezing of pension contributions.
The listed firm said this week it had started consultation to reduce headcount by around 130 roles.
It is also proposing that pension contributions made to the pension Scheme for UK directors and associate directors are frozen for 12 months. ‘Historically our benefits in this scheme have been up to 50% higher than our peers,’ the firm said.
It is also asking UK directors and associate directors to consider a voluntary temporary pay cut to help keep the number of redundancies down. ‘For those that take part in this programme, we are targeting a minimum 10% reduction from directors and a minimum 5% reduction from associate directors for a 12-month period,’ it said.
‘Leadership listened to staff who have been asking that we consider alternatives to headcount reduction,’ it added.
‘We understand that this is a significant sacrifice for staff to make and firmly believe we cannot ask for this sacrifice if we are not prepared to do it ourselves.’
The UK executive committee has already volunteered to take this reduction as a minimum, and new CEO Paul Idzik has taken a cut to his £400,000 salary ‘at a percentage well above the suggested levels we are asking directors and associate directors to consider,’ the firm said.
‘No-one would chose to be making these cuts under normal conditions but we have to do what is in the long-term interests of our clients, staff and shareholders and will help sustain the business through this extremely difficult time,’ said John Forrester, head of UK & Ireland
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