Nearly 55,000 employees at accounting giant EY¡¯s US operations woke up to find their salaries¡¯ disappear from their bank accounts yesterday. Reason behind this is said to be an error by EY¡¯s payroll provider ADP.?
This payroll mistake comes amidst US workers reeling under the pressure of a surge in living costs. US inflation hit its 41 year high mark of 9.1% last month.?
The rare and rather embarrassing error also highlights the reliance of large companies on technology and the impact on customers and employees when systems fail. EY is considering a historic split of its audit and advisory divisions that would enable it to win more tech consulting work by avoiding conflicts of interest between the two business lines, as per Financial Times report.
The accounting firm reportedly said that its payroll provider ADP had ¡°erroneously reversed EY¡¯s July 15 payroll impacting our US employees¡±. The firm added that it was working urgently with ADP to fix the error, which had affected all of its roughly 55,000 US employees.?
Employees who had already transferred the salary money out of their accounts or had used it to repay bills were at the risk of being left in overdraft as a result of the mistake by ADP. For the uninitiated, ADP is one of the world¡¯s biggest online payroll and HR software companies, with a massive market valuation of around $90 billion.
¡°Late fees, penalties or other charges [staff] may have incurred as a result of this error will be covered,¡± EY said.?
ADP said in a statement: ¡°We can confirm that we experienced an error that caused a payment reversal for a group of US employees of one of our clients. We understand the urgency of this issue and our team is working swiftly to resolve this to ensure employees receive their pay as quickly as possible.¡±?
¡°Please accept our sincere apology for the inconvenience,¡± EY wrote to employees, as per a report in Boston Herald.
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EY employees vented out their frustration of salary reversal by taking to online forums and message boards yesterday.
¡°Woke up with a bank alert about an overdraft fee, great way to start my day,¡± said one person on Reddit. Other users also said they were in overdraft as a result of the mistake, which one said they noticed at 5.30am. ¡°I¡¯ve been here 25 years and this is the first time [this has happened],¡± said an EY employee on Fishbowl, a mobile social media app for professionals, , as per the Financial Times report.
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