Company breeds multitasking culture, say EY employees fired for attending multiple training courses simultaneously

Ernst & Young (EY) is making headlines again after the company laid off hundreds of its employees in the US for participating in more than one online training class simultaneously.

While EY justified its action by saying that attending multiple courses at the same time breached company's ethics and violated their code of conduct, employees told Financial Times that they had received no prior warning from the company against attending multiple courses simultaneously.

“Their emails marketing EY Ignite actually encouraged us to join as many sessions as our schedule allowed. We all work with three monitors," FT quoted one of the fired employees as saying.

The fired employees were also reportedly not even given any benefits or severance.

Meanwhile, other employees of the company shed light on its work culture that allegedly “breeds a culture of multitasking".

“If you are forced to bill 45 hours a week and do many more hours of internal work, how can it not," an employee was quoted as saying, while another shared that they knew an EY partner who would take two client calls simultaneously.

“I know a partner who will do two (client) calls and switch their camera on and off depending on who he is talking to. If this is unethical, then that is unethical, too," FT quoted the fired employee as saying.

However, EY stood by its stance of sacking these employees calling their action "appropriate".

“Our core values of integrity and ethics are at the forefront of everything we do ... Appropriate disciplinary action was recently taken in a small number of cases where individuals were found to be in violation of our global code of conduct and US learning policy," they said.

EY has been under fire lately after the death of a woman CA working in the Pune office, that was reportedly functioning since 2007 without a license under the Shops Act, which stipulates employees' welfare among other conditions.

The 26-year-old woman allegedly died due to work stress in July, four months into joining the firm in Pune.

(With PTI inputs)