Anna Sebastian Perayil, who appeared for the chartered account (CA) exams in November earlier this year and was employed with the Pune office of global firm Ernst & Young (EY), has died at the age of 26. Anna’s grieving mother, Anita Augustine, wrote a letter to Rajiv Memani, chairman of EY India and claimed that constant work pressure led to her daughter’s death. Moreover, the mother I was given evidence that no one from the EY firm attended the funeral of the daughter. Ms. Augustine’s letter posted on social media says, “She (Anna) worked very hard at EY, and as much as she could to meet further pressures that were placed upon her.
Just a few months ago, Anna Sebastian Perayil, a woman from Kerala, India, posted on the LinkedIn account, “Happy to announce that I have joined EY as an Audit and Assurance Executive”, this was her first job after passing her Chartered Accountant exam last year; as her mother Anita Augustine wrote in an e-mail to the chairman of the India area of EY Rajiv Memani, ‘In her previous job, she
A short while later, Augustine said that her daughter started to “get anxious, sleepless and stressed”, while still striving to keep working as she believed that “no pain, no gain”.
When her teammates resigned due to the team leader’s tendency of assigning an “excessive workload,” Anna Sebastian Perayil did not. Her boss told her to “hang in there and help alter people’s perception towards the team.”
Anna Sebastian Perayil’s mother also testified that her daughter frequently worked at night and during the weekends, writing reports from her manager at any time of the day. Her mother told her that she never got the opportunity of having a breathing space.
Anna reported her mother about the oppressively heavy workload, especially the verbally given assignments in addition to the regular work, said Anna Sebastian Perayil’s mother in her email. She also told me that when she told her daughter the challenges she faces at work, the manager said to her, ‘You can work at night, that is what we all do.”
From the figure shown above analysis, by the end of the week, Ms Augustine has observed that Anna was always exhausted to the extent that she looked weary and would at times fall on her bed in her PG house without even changing her clothes from her working uniform only to be followed with more demands for the preparation of more reports. “Anna would never have blamed her managers”, too kind for that, she adds.
“However, I cannot keep quiet anymore. Ever since the newcomers were provided with such backbreaking work to do, working day and night including Sundays, there is no reason for such actions.”
“It is a cancer that is not restricted to managers or certain teams. More to the point, the unrelenting pressure and demands to deliver on unrealistic targets are unsustainable, and as a nation we lose the life of a bright young woman with so much to offer.”
A similar point made by her is about the absence of even a single representative of EY at the funeral of Anna. “This absence at such a critical moment, for an employee who sacrificed her life for your organization is painful. I attempted to contact her managers after the funeral but I never got any response. How can an organization claiming to embrace values of human rights and equal opportunities fail to attend the funeral of one of its own employees who gave up her life for the company?”
The problem of working overtime has recently been discussed rather actively in India when the founder of Infosys NR Narayana Murthy said in a podcast that if India wants to compete with those countries that have improved their financial results several times in recent decades, young people should work 70 hours a week.
As we know, in the month of October 2019, Supriya Sule, the Member of Parliament (MP) from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), now the NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) had moved a private member’s bill on the Right to disconnect.
“For maintaining appropriate working-to-family-life balance of the employees, thus enhancing organizational productivity, and performance, the need for an occasional break from work-related occupations or digital interactions and invest time in building and nurturing human relationships. The Bill seeks to acknowledge the right to disconnection as a means of managing stress levels and alleviating tension between an employee’s work and personal life.”
EY India’s chairman, Rajiv Memani received backlash for his response to Anita Augustine’s letter, concerning the death of his daughter, Anna Sebastian.
That is when the EY India’s chairman Rajiv Memani came up with a response to the letter that Anita Augustine posted on the internet and it went totally wrong. The chairman said he was grieving with the family and that his company was there to help the family but it was when he discussed Anna’s death that dealt the final blow. He wrote:
“Anna was employed with us for four months and as any other employee she was given work to do; we do not think that pressure could have led to her death.”
Social networking sites to his statement and EY India went viral and was trending all over the micro blogging sites. Some people instead of only cursing the Management of EY India they targeted everyone as the issue of ‘Toxic Work Culture’ of India is now finally becoming a conversation.
As of now, EY India is in the direct line of ‘fire’ and viewers are demonizing and causing embarrassment to the audacious trolls of toxic corporate culture on social media. The company’s chairman, Rajiv Memani assured that he would make changes in the company but many people do not believe him after that.
However, up to now, there is no information that the Bill has been debated in the Lok Sabha.
France, Belgium and Italy already have legislations that have addressed the right to disconnect. However, the right to disconnect did not start recently, in fact, it was in France that it was created in 2017.
Last month, Australia adopted a new right to disconnect law, which will give workers the right to reject the employer or third-party communication during working hours. It was implemented where the employer had at least fifteen employees. For companies with less than 50 employees the law will start from August of 2025.
But this statement received a lot of backlashes on social media platforms. It would be wrong to deride the response he created as that of privileged kids fuming at the prospect of having to earn more. Indeed, only a few supported the sentiment expressed by Mr Murthy with the rest of society reacting vigorously to the call. Women noted that they work over 70 hours as they are still charged with the responsibility of managing their homes, children and sometimes even the elderly parents. These concerns included health concerns, long working hours and travel time as well as being able to balance between family and work.
References:
- https://www.latintimes.com/young-woman-dies-four-months-new-job-her-mother-blames-company-glorifying-overwork-559605
- https://www.bollywoodshaadis.com/articles/26-year-old-ey-india-pune-employee-anna-died-work-stress-mom-letter-chairman-rajiv-memani-56356
- Also Read:https://thenewzzy.com/only-murder-in-the-building-10-more-murder/
