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Comment by Izmaki | Hacker News Reader

Deloitte has got, I've heard (!), in their training material a section about integrity and how important it is to act ethically correct. Deloitte also does sh*t like this and - again, I've heard (!) - asks its employees to bill hours on projects they are not working on so that they can maximize profits at their clients expenses. Also elephants are pink.

How this company can proceed to exist is beyond me.

For legal reasons I must emphasize that this is hear-say and should not be trusted as facts. At least one statement is a lie. What you believe to be true is up to you.

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Deloitte operates much more like a franchise network than a single multinational corporation. It's technically a network of independent, locally owned professional-services partnerships.

This one appears to be Cyprus - clearly the center of ethical business operations...

Is this a different structure from other large multinational consulting groups?

No, all big 4 are franchises.

But MBB is different.

“Sorry, we can’t help you. Let me introduce you to my colleague from Cyprus who can...”

They had me watch some nonsense on integrity as part of the training.

All the while we were doing financial regulation software without any proper tests on the models being done outside of some spot checks.

And the idea of doing those was frowned upon :)

Lovely place.

Amazing. Simply amazing. I also loved the one that allegedly says that you can't publicly criticise the leadership structure. Allegedly.

> about integrity and how important it is to act ethically correct

There's also a fine print at the bottom that says 'lolz'.

I'm sure the seniors had a blast producing that material. "...and then I told them - get this (*wheezes between laughs*) - we have to be honest ! Hah!"

Allegedly.

Don't open yourself up to charges of hilarity.

Every bank has exactly same stuff. Any new scandal adds another 1..X mandatory trainings for much of / all staff, usually quaterly recurring ones.

Things like escalate problems to correct teams, even where to (supposedly anonymously) whistleblow, but thats most probably 1 way ticket to unemployment office with a sife effect of appearing on some industry-wide even if local blacklist.

They are so predicrable I dont read accompanying materials anymore and usually just 1-shot final tests, maybe apart from stuff that I never touched nor heard of, that sometimes requires second go.

To sum it up - those trainings are not ultimate business guidelines. The more they veer on what to do in case of something bad/spicy happens, the more they are some court ordered result of some long legal battle and settlement&fine.

I worked for Siemens, which was fined for bribing foreign officials to secure orders (which was undoubtedly SOP for all businesses in those countries, but Siemens got caught).

As a result of Siemen's execs bribing various Nigerian princes et al, new employees at the lowest levels were required to take training to teach them that bribing government officials is Bad, mmkay?

The execs did not do time, and AFAIK were not fired. But the secretaries now know they shouldn't do that!

For what it’s worth, I’m not so sure there’s much of a difference in delivered value between the hours truthfully billed vs. fraudulently billed

> How this company can proceed to exist is beyond me.

Isn't the whole point of these companies to rubberstamp shady things corporations are doing, so they can shed resposibility more easily when caught?

Not only. They are also used when a CEO wants to do something and needs someone to produce evidence supporting what the CEO already wanted to do.

They also exist to transfer wealth to workers with the right pedigree (much like the tech industry for many years). If you go to the right school, but graduate without actually being able to do anything, you apply to a consultancy. You'll at least make enough to afford your apartment and groceries while you make the connections to get paid 6-7 figures doing nothing someplace else.

Most corporations probably have those. They also have similar training about security, and yet. Software corporations have similar training about software engineering practices, and yet.

To be fair, this is Deloitte Cyprus. Not that other partnerships wouldn’t do the same, but one that is set up in a renowned tax haven is likely to come across some interesting work.

I see their work product with some regularity. To say I'm not impressed would be a severe understatement and I really don't understand why companies keep hiring them.

I think the article explains why.

They did a 'cloud strategy' for a previous client. There was a 'partner', numerous 'consultants', 7 figures US$ AFAIK.

It was mostly regurgitating the AWS published best practices on Deloitte letterhead. We all grumbled how "this was not a good use of money", but one of the senior folks from the line of business side said "you guys were going to basically do this anyway...now noone can say you picked the wrong strategy". Which, to be fair, was true.

So that's probably why companies keep hiring them.

Yes they're basically glorified "insurance" for the c suite

I wasn't exactly c-suite in that engagement; it provided air-cover up and down the CoC. But yeah, I get your point.

It's also a great "telephone" between the low-ranks and the C-suite if the comms are broken on a company.

meaning: If your boss won't bother to ask it's own employees or trust their feedback, he might choose a well kept, well presented third party to gather that feedback from their employees, and then package it nicely with some cool logos and slides and decks, and charge you a shit ton of money out of it.

I"m sure you're not taking corporate CYA training at face value are you? They do these trainings so they can have some liability coverage despite the fact that they hire people to explicitly do these unethical things. Then when shit goes sideways they can say this isn't our culture or policy and point to the training. We provided training against these actions. Limited liability means zero accountability.

Sounds like every other corporation in America?

Deloitte, for the record, is a multinational based in London.

Sounds like every other multinational based in London.

Its a bit more complex. its a network of national firms, and each member firm is a separate legal entity. in this case it was the Cypriot member firm.

From the footer on (the Uk section) of their website:

> Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte organisation”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties.

Who is deciding compensation/hiring/terminations? Are there separate leaders in each nation independent of the others?

Deloitte employees, former as well as current, are not allowed to share details about hiring process, management structure or compensation schemes. Enjoy.

*cringes in multiple ways*

Deloitte is a global network of partnerships, which has a corporate structure with liability rules that are different from a regular corporation.

You can read more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte#Legal_structure

Yes, that link was trivial to find. But it does not expound on how the decision making process works. Each nation’s Deloitte organization is presumably able to avoid blame for actions done in any other nation, so the question is are they all operated completely independently? Is there no hierarchy above the national level?

This should help you get a better picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_services_network

Yes, there are. Each is run independently.

This is fairly typical for accountancy and law firms.

More explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_services_networks

WTF - I am being downvoted for explaining this above? Pure facts!

"Well, ackshually...."

Which changes nothing about the GP's incorrect assertion.

KPMG, E&Y, PWC, they're all the same because they have to compete with each other's dishonesty in order to both maximise profits and maximise cough tax savings cough for their customers.

There have been a couple of scandals in Australia, and yet they all remain part of 'the big four'. They're all tainted as fuck.

"How this company can proceed to exist is beyond me."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxd23UVID7k&list=RDGxd23UVID...

The goal is not to train you, but to limit their liability. They can say they have a track record of ethical training, and then off the track have incentives to do unethical stuff.

Standard corporate nonsense. Enron famously had integrity plastered across it's corporate walls as it's values when they got done for fraud.

> Also elephants are pink.

What does this expression mean in this context?

My hot take is that we should have broken windows policing for white collar crime.

> How this company can proceed to exist is beyond me.

How can they not proceed. They are making money doing nothing and have no moral boundaries. And now we find out they have no legal boundaries either.

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