Ed. note: the earliest reports identified the woman as 33 years old, this has now been corrected to 27 based on new information.
Tragic news coming out of Sydney, a 27-year-old woman working for EY died at the office over the weekend.
The original Australian report is behind a paywall so we’re getting some details from Daily Mail, sorry. The Guardian also has some info. Unfortunately details are a bit sparse at this time and her identity and position at the firm have not been revealed.
According to reports, the woman went out for drinks with colleagues Friday night at a nightclub called The Ivy and returned to the office at around 7:30 p.m. to finish some work. The Australian wrote there are reports she was escorted out of The Ivy for being intoxicated however EY security footage reviewed by police did not suggest visible intoxication. Her body was later discovered by colleagues on Saturday morning.
The woman’s husband was on a flight from Singapore to Australia that night and learned of her death when he got off the plane at Sydney airport.
Oceania CEO & Regional Managing Partner David Larocca said in a firmwide email:
It is with great sadness that I’m sharing the news that one of our team members died at the EY building in Sydney over the weekend.
While the police investigation is ongoing, we have been informed that there were no suspicious circumstances.
We have been in touch with the family of the person involved to offer our condolences and ongoing support.
This loss of a colleague is deeply saddening, I want to assure all of you that we will continue to provide support in as many ways that we can. This includes our EAP service which is available to all EY employees and their families.
As a result of this tragedy, we are conducting a comprehensive and wide-ranging internal review that will include health and safety, security and social events. Jono Nicholas, our Chief Mental Health Advisor will play an important role in helping guide and advise us as we move forward.
News.com.au mentions various comments from around the internet (here’s some on r/sydney) on how workaholic culture may have contributed to the incident however is sure to disclaim they do not actually suggest EY had anything to do with this.
In the aftermath of the death, posts on online forums have highlighted the “high pressure and workaholic culture” at Big 4 financial services firms.
“Had a lot of late nights and weekends so can definitely see what she may be experiencing. Took six months leave to mentally reset myself. Ultimately quit after that,” wrote one Reddit user, who claimed to be a former employee at a Big 4 firm.
“Working for B4 (Big 4) can often feel like working in a sweat shop. They don’t care about your wellbeing. They just care about output, output, output,” another comment read.
News.com.au is not suggesting the work culture at EY contributed to the employee’s death.
We’ll update when we have more information. If you have more details, please use the contact information below to reach Going Concern editors and contribute to this report.
Oh! very SAD…