After EY employee Anna Sebastian's death, Deloitte to review its people practices
Following the tragic death of Anna Sebastian Perayil, a 26-year-old Chartered Accountant at Ernst & Young (EY), allegedly due to extreme work pressure, which has put the spotlight on the toxic work environment, another of the Big Four accounting firms has launched a review of its policies.
Deloitte India forms three-member committee
Deloitte on Friday announced that a three-member external committee has been set up to look into practices, policies, and processes concerning employees.
"We have instituted a panel post this. Tarun Bajaj, who used to be the Revenue Secretary, Manoj Kohli, who used to be the CEO of Airtel, and Subodh Jaiswal, who used to be the CBI Director, will relook at all our people practices, our policies, processes. How are ethics cases... We have an ethics helpline. How do they get actually managed? What are our mechanisms in place to do it?" Deloitte South Asia CEO Romal Shetty said.
Client service has pressure: Shetty
According to Shetty, the company has an open work culture and takes the strictest action for any bad behaviour within the organisation.
Deloitte India has a workforce of approximately 120,000 employees, which is about 25% of its global workforce.
Calling the 26-year-old's death in July tragic, Shetty acknowledged that working in client service can be stressful.
"We are in the client service business, and in the client service business, there will always be deadlines... having all of those pressures," Shetty said.
'No bullying in Deloitte'
He, however, claimed that there was no bullying culture in Deloitte.
"Bullying culture is not normally the way professional organisations are. But are there individuals who do certain things? Yes, absolutely... So first, I think, as an organisation, you need to have an open culture where nobody should be scared to bring up those issues," he said.
EY India Chairman promises reforms
Earlier, under fire for his handling of the death of Anna, Rajiv Memani, the Chairman of EY India, had also said that the well-being of employees was his top-most priority and that he would personally champion this objective.
"I am absolutely committed to nurturing a harmonious workplace, and I will not rest until that objective is accomplished," Memani said.
Following the death of Anna, the Labour Ministry also launched an investigation into allegations of a toxic and unsafe work culture at EY.
For more news and current affairs?from around the world, please visit?Indiatimes News.
