PwC's $2.4 billion bet on employee choice as a business driver

Executive overview

Most corporate workplaces were built for the 20th century: fixed hours, fixed benefits, fixed career paths. PwC's research found that employees want radical choice — over hours, work type, benefits, and learning — and that granting that choice drives client performance, not undermines it.

Tim Ryan, Chair and Senior Partner at PwC US, describes the firm's MyPlus platform: a full digitisation of the employee experience that matches individual preferences against business demand in real time. The platform links career development, compensation, and scheduling into one system.

Whoever creates an environment where people feel their best — heart and mind — will create the best client experiences.

What triggered the $2.4 billion investment

• In 2019, PwC identified two structural forces: a shrinking full-time US workforce (declining for 15 years) and a growing preference for contract and gig work
• Client demands were rising simultaneously, creating a talent squeeze
• Focus groups, thousands of employee interviews, 1,000+ partner conversations, and research with 10+ academic institutions all pointed to the same need: choice
• The pandemic shelved the initiative briefly, then the Great Resignation made it urgent
• Pre-pandemic thinking (e.g. a four-day work week) was a step toward choice but not its full expression

How MyPlus works

• Employees set preferences in a mobile app: hours per week, work type, client industry, travel tolerance — and can change them as life changes
• Backend systems (scheduling, finance, deployment, benefits, learning) talk to each other and match employee preferences against real client demand
• If an employee wants work they're not yet qualified for, the platform surfaces the exact learning path needed
• Compensation is tied to both hours worked and impact, making trade-offs transparent
• Choice is structured, not unlimited: business rules cap how far preferences can diverge from operational needs during busy periods
• US rollout first, then global — consistent with how PwC scaled cloud migration and upskilling programs

Success metrics

• Client satisfaction scores
• Employee survey data on wellbeing and sense of self-realisation at work
• Talent attraction and retention rates
• The investment is not predicated on direct revenue return; it is predicated on productivity and loyalty gains

Making the case internally

• The most common objection: one good recession will shift power back to employers, making this unnecessary
• Ryan's counter: demographic data (ageing workforce, five million pandemic exits) indicates the talent shortage is structural, not cyclical
• A second objection: giving employees too much choice will hurt client service — Ryan inverts this: constrained choice hurts performance; structured choice improves it
• Healthy debate over months, not hours, was deliberately built into the decision process

Business differentiation and the talent war

• Compensation is table stakes — every competitor pays roughly the same dollar
• Differentiation comes from experience: the feeling of the work environment, the degree of autonomy, the quality of career development
• CEOs Ryan advises have moved talent to the top of the agenda; their positions on return-to-office have evolved as they read the environment
• Playing it safe is a culture risk: short-term metrics can mask long-term erosion until it is too late to reverse

CEO Action for Diversity and leading on social issues

• Ryan founded CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion in June 2017, after a shooting incident in his first week as chair showed him that physical attendance is not the same as heart and mind
• The initial commitment asked CEOs to make it genuinely safe to discuss race — a basic step that was not yet common in 2017
• George Floyd's murder in 2020 accelerated these conversations dramatically; boardroom diversity progress in 18 months exceeded the prior decade
• On Russia: PwC withdrew completely after the Ukraine invasion — a costly short-term decision, but consistent with values and employee trust
• The filter Ryan uses: does this issue affect how employees feel about themselves and their ability to do their best work? If yes, weigh in. If ancillary, acknowledge it but stay focused.
• Trust is now a primary business asset; questions about tax fairness, data use, and social commitments all resolve to trustworthiness

Leading change at scale

• The critical skill set for future executives: leading large groups through continuous change — not managing stability
• Climate transition, the metaverse, Web 3.0, workforce ageing: the next 30 years are defined by movement from old to new
• The risk is not taking too much change — the risk is missing the opportunity while waiting for certainty
• A culture that avoids risk can survive short-term on good metrics but fails over the long run
• Leaders must shorten the downslope of transition: acknowledge difficulty, signal what is on the other side, keep moving