McKinsey about-face reveals misconduct complaints
Strategy consulting firm McKinsey has admitted to 15 workplace misconduct complaints in the past five years at its Australian offices, including one of sexual harassment, and says it has settled a discrimination claim from a fired employee.
The admissions are a remarkable about face for the firm, which claimed to a Senate inquiry in July that it had a bullying- and harassment-free workplace, with no formal complaints since 2019.
In new responses to questions on notice from a Senate inquiry into conflicts of interest and poor behaviour by consulting firms, McKinsey conceded that five of the 15 allegations of misconduct had been substantiated, including two cases of expense violations.
The firm stated it “did not provide data on this in our first submission” to the inquiry because the data had “not been mapped” into a new tracking tool.
The inquiry was triggered by the ongoing PwC tax leaks scandal first revealed by The Australian Financial Review.
McKinsey also admitted that four employees or partners were fired for cause or underperformance between 2020 and 2022, including the former staffer who settled their discrimination case with the firm. That person entered a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) as part of the settlement.
It confirmed that “a number of colleagues chose to leave” McKinsey in this period after receiving performance warnings, however, tacitly confirming the consulting industry’s infamous practice of managing out poor performers instead of dismissing or retaining them.
“We have a culture of high-performance expectations, which is deeply rooted in evaluation and feedback,” McKinsey said in its latest responses to questions on notice, released this week.
While the firm does not dismiss personnel unless they
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