You slaved your way through a boring degree; you forfeited your last ever long summer holiday for an internship; you put your life on hold while going through months of interviews; and in the end you managed to fight off 97 per cent of the competition to land a job at a Big Four accounting firm. It’s not much fun, and your work-life balance is frankly terrible, but at least the pay is decent and you have job security. And then, out of the blue, you’re fired without warning. Your crime? Multitasking.
It might sound preposterous, and indeed it is. But that was the reality for the several dozen EY employees who were fired last week, ostensibly for having dared to attend several online training sessions at the same time. (Some have suggested these were lay-offs in disguise. I wouldn’t want to speculate.)
One might argue that these former staff members were simply showing initiative. Presumably anyone who spent the training scrolling through social media was safe as long as they were only attending one session. But EY claimed their actions constituted an ethical breach. “Our core values of integrity and ethics are at the forefront of everything we do,” the company said. One of the firees complained the company “breeds a culture of multitasking”, asking: “If you are forced to bill 45 hours a week and do many more hours of internal work, how can it not?” Quite.