Following the death of an EY employee, Deloitte forms a panel to review human resources practices | Company news

“…Very unfortunate, very tragic, a small child has lost his life. We are in customer service and in customer service there are always deadlines… we are under all this pressure,” Shetty told PTI in an interview.

Anna Sebastian Perayil, who passed her CA exam in 2023 and worked at EY's Pune office for four months, died in July. According to a letter her mother wrote to EY India chairman Rajiv Memani, as a new employee she was overworked with a “bone-breaking” load that affected her “physically, emotionally and mentally.”

Shetty rejected any culture of bullying within organizations that have been built up over 100 to 150 years, but did not rule out individual offenses.

“We have set up a panel comprising Tarun Bajaj, former finance minister, Manoj Kohli, former CEO of Airtel and Subodh Jaiswal, former CBI director, to review all our HR practices, policies and processes. How are ethics cases handled? We have an ethics hotline. How are they actually handled? What mechanisms have we put in place for that?” Shetty said.

He said in today's world where the workforce is diverse, there is a need to rethink the work environment and make it suitable for stress management. Mental health is a serious issue and dealing with it is a challenge, he said.

Shetty said the young people entering the workforce today come from tier 2 and 3 cities, have left their families and may also be facing stress in their personal lives in addition to the work pressure they face in a customer-focused business with tight deadlines.

“The younger generation is much smarter than I ever was, much more intelligent, much more clever. Sometimes I think a little more resilience would be useful,” Shetty said.

Shetty said that as CEO, he visits every office and conducts an open forum where people can ask all kinds of questions.

“The concept is that if you can ask your CEO any question, even a slightly embarrassing one, then you can actually go to an executive and say, 'I'm not enjoying this…' We can also create an environment where people feel comfortable with their work, because sometimes you spend 14 hours at work,” Shetty said.

First published: September 20, 2024 | 19:49 IS