Check out the very corporate goodbye email PwC told staffers to send if they're taking a buyout

• PwC offered UK buyout packages and directed staff on how to communicate their exits.
• The buyout program wasn't officially communicated firm-wide, and it came with messaging rules.

After the accounting giant PwC offered UK buyout packages in recent weeks, staff were directed on exactly how they should communicate their exits, the Financial Times first reported.

The FT saw a note sent to employees that told them they couldn't talk about the circumstances of their departure. PwC said that it could review messages before they were sent out to "a defined group" and that the note couldn't be "derogatory."

While PwC told employees their goodbye messages could be personalized, the firm offered the following wording and wrote, "The content of your comms should follow this approach:"

PwC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside business hours.

While multiple UK offices were offered the buyout, the program wasn't officially communicated across the firm. It wasn't immediately clear how many people accepted buyouts across the UK offices.

The Big Four firms — EY, Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG — have cut hundreds of jobs in the past year as slowing client work has forced professional services to rethink their staffing needs.

In November, the FT reported that PwC planned to ax up to 600 jobs in the UK, and McKinsey said last year it would slash 1,400 jobs globally.

Accenture offered new hires out of college up to $25,000 to push their start dates back. Beth Hendler-Grunt, the president of Next Great Step, a career-counseling service for college graduates, told BI earlier this month that other consultancies had pushed entry-level start dates back eight to 11 months.