Consultant stops pension cash as senior Scott Wilson staff move to three-day week
Robinson Low Francis has become the latest consultant to reduce salaries in response to the recession, enforcing a 12.5% cut.
The firm is also stopping company contributions to staff pensions, which are worth 3-6% of salaries.
Sources close to the company, which employs 140 people in London, Brighton, Manchester and Edinburgh, said staff were called to a meeting at 12.30pm on Monday to be told of the changes.
One source said the atmosphere at the firm 鈥渇elt like a bereavement鈥�. The news follows Gleeds鈥� decision to cut salaries by an 鈥渁verage鈥� of 12.5%.
Steven Barker, senior partner at RLF, said the decision was difficult but prudent. 鈥淭his is not a decision we have taken lightly, and we plan to review salaries again as soon as the market picks up.鈥�
At engineer Scott Wilson, some senior staff have agreed to work three- or four-day weeks, according to Jerome Monro-Lafon, its UK managing director. The move comes as the company announced this week that it would axe 10% of its 6,000 staff around the world.
And on Monday, Buro Happold put its 1,000-strong UK staff on notice of redundancy as part of a 90-day consultation designed to cope with a projected fall in workload of up to 20% by August.
Gavin Thompson, managing director, said: 鈥淎lthough none of us would choose to be in this position we must take carefully considered actions that will stand the practice in good stead for the future.鈥�
Davis Langdon confirmed that 68 employees had left after a consultation with 134 staff that started in January. The consultation will be completed at the end of April.
Meanwhile, architect Assael has cut salaries 15% after giving staff the choice between pay cuts and further redundancies. Director John Assael said: 鈥淲e鈥檙e in this storm together.鈥�
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