To pare its ranks, Accenture employed a three-pronged strategy. Because the company routinely dismisses between 3 to 5 percent of its employee base annually due to poor performance, those employees were the first to go. The company then deferred the start dates of newly recruited staffers to coincide with demand swings in the market. Then, the company created a FlexLeave program, where staffers were given the option of taking sabbaticals on a 20 percent salary. While close to 1,700 employees took the opportunity, Accenture still needed to trim some more fat from its operations. That meant layoffs.