Fired EY employee breaks silence on video courses row: ‘We work with 3 monitors’

Ernst & Young has fired dozens of employees in the United States for simultaneously attending more than one online training class during the accounting firm’s learning week earlier this year. The company said the act amounted to breach of ethics and violation of its global code of conduct.
Several employees who were sacked last week for this reason spoke with British daily The Financial Times, which first published the news, countering that there was no prior warning from EY against attending multiple courses at the same time.
“Their emails marketing EY Ignite actually encouraged us to join as many sessions as our schedule allowed. We all work with three monitors,” one of the employees fired told FT.
“I was hoping to hear new ideas that I could bring to the table to separate myself from others.”
The fired employees of the Big Four firm were not given benefits or severance, New York reported, citing an EY insider.
Another sacked employee hit out at EY for the tall work targets, alleging it “breeds a culture of multitasking”.
“If you are forced to bill 45 hours a week and do many more hours of internal work, how can it not?”
A third employee claimed they know an EY partner who would take two client calls at the same time and switch on and off their camera, depending on who they were speaking with.
“I know a partner who will do two (client) calls and switch their camera on and off depending on who he is talking to. If this is unethical, then that is unethical, too,” the fired employee told FT.
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EY termed the sackings as “appropriate disciplinary action”, saying attending more than one course at the same time was a breach of the company’s ethics.
“Our core values of integrity and ethics are at the forefront of everything we do,” Ernst & Young said. “Appropriate disciplinary action was recently taken in a small number of cases where individuals were found to be in violation of our global code of conduct and US learning policy.”
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