EY has issued a statement addressing the now-viral email written to EY India Chairman and Regional Managing Partner Rajiv Memani by a mother who tragically lost her daughter, an EY employee for just four months, in July. Anita Augustine’s scathing letter details how her 26 year old daughter Anna Sebastian Perayil “worked tirelessly at EY,” giving in to unreasonable demands placed upon her day after day because she was new and wanted to impress. “However, the workload, new environment, and long hours took a toll on her physically, emotionally, and mentally,” said Anna’s mother. “She began experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, and stress soon after joining, but she kept pushing herself, believing that hard work and perseverance were the keys to success.”
“When Anna joined this specific team, she was told that many employees had resigned due to the excessive workload, and the team manager told to her, ‘Anna, you must stick around and change everyone’s opinion about our team.’ My child didn’t realize she would pay for that with her life,” the email said.
A tweet by @kaay_rao — which is where we first saw the letter shared yesterday — has 3.2 million views as of publication time.
Heartbreaking news from EY Pune – a young CA succumbed to the work pressure and nobody from EY even attended her funeral – this is so appalling and nasty!!! pic.twitter.com/pt8ThUKiNR
— Malavika Rao (@kaay_rao) September 17, 2024
Social media reaction and media coverage since the letter dropped yesterday has pushed EY India into issuing a statement. “Anna was a part of the Audit team at S R Batliboi, a member firm of EY Global, in Pune for a brief period of four months, joining the firm on 18 March 2024. That her promising career was cut short in this tragic manner is an irreparable loss for all of us,” EY’s statement said [source: Economic Times]. She passed away on July 20.
“We are taking the family’s correspondence with the utmost seriousness and humility. We place the highest importance on the well-being of all employees and will continue to find ways to improve and provide a healthy workplace for our 100,000 people across EY member firms in India,” they said.
The statement, brusque and hollow even by corporatespeak standards, is not being well-received by the public so far.
EY’s response is a classic lesson on how to say nothing will change without saying nothing will change. pic.twitter.com/HuHIDScGLf
— Lavanya Mohan (@lavsmohan) September 18, 2024
More conversation in @kaay_rao’s replies.
Earlier: Mother Pens Letter Calling Out EY After Her Overworked Daughter Suddenly Passed Away at 26
Something that I haven’t seen mentioned by anyone yet is that the whole reason the firms are moving so much work to places like India is that the people there are viewed a less valuable (and more expendable) than Americans. And when I say “less valuable”, I mean that the firm can pay them less, not that they think American workers are “valuable”.
The accounting profession has some big problems, all of which are being extensively documented on websites such as GC. I think the biggest problem is the pure greed of the partners at the major firms, and a complete lack of interest or caring about the future of the profession. It’s not their problem. They’re only in it to get theirs. I don’t know how to fix a problem like this in a capitalist economy/society.
As for what happened in this specific case of the young woman dying, I expressed my unpopular views on the previous post.
Also, a large part of the reason the firms are moving so many jobs to places like India is that the people there are willing to work hard. Compared to the American kids who think they should be a CFO after paying their dues for 6 months.
From 20 years ago at a place called dell Wipro spectra mind. No aux breaks ie no bathroom breaks till the call volume comes down. Blame lies with batliboi for trying to please ey by taking on unlimited work load and increasing margins by understanding. Also the girl seemed to have a heart problem (extreme tiredness).does ey have regular health checks?
There is a significant issue with Accenture as well. No one talks about it but people are being asked to work for 15 hours a day. Starting from 9AM to 12 AM. A lot of working mothers / caregivers have left because of that. Especially the Talent hiring teams working in India. People are sticking around as there are not many jobs in the market and for that the firm is taking a big advantage. Many concerns were raised with CEO/CHRO but no relief came. I guess, it will take another death for them to realize and stop exploiting people.
“We place the highest importance on the well-being of all employees…”
Nonsense. None of the Big 4 give a crap about their employees except insofar as they can produce and make them money. Who are you trying to fool?
Can you do an update/refresh of the 2018 maternity leave article?
I can take a look. What’s the URL?
FWIW – Indian law requires most audit firms to be Indian-owned, i.e., no ownership by foreigners. To get around this, Big 4 have “affiliates” which meet Indian legal ownership standard. Based on mom’s letter, this young woman was a Chartered Accountant, doing staff audit work at the local EY affiliate. It doesn’t seem that she was a call center employee (not that it matters). Hard to believe that “real” EY Global — that’s you, Janet — hasn’t responded in a meaningful way.
Having spent 40 years in the now big 4. I’ve seen from the highest levels genuine attempts at treating employees fairly and with compassion and understanding. All Firms preach this in their public policy statements. However, where the rubber meets the road is the people who actually run the day to day operations. I’ve seen the best and the worst. If no one attended her funeral or reached out to the family – that’s an example of the worst and is unconscionable! An example of it wouldn’t be billable time mentality. I’ve seen the opposite personally and of others. Again, if the people running the day to day can act in such a callous manner they should be fired. If, leadership does not investigate this situation then leadership needs to be fired as well. Period