On Tuesday, 17th September, a 26-year-old girl working at Ernst & Young (EY), Pune, one of the Big Four accounting companies, died tragically after four months of joining due to what her family described as work-related stress. The deceased girl has been identified as Anna Sebastian Perayil, a young Chartered Accountant (CA) from Kerala. The girl allegedly was burdened with backbreaking work by the authorities which resulted in the deteriorating health of the girl, eventually leading to her death.

Perayil’s mother, Anita Augustine raised the issue by sending an email to Rajiv Memani, the company’s India CEO. In her letter, she accused the firm of “glorifying overwork” and emphasized how the company’s human rights values contradicted the reality her daughter faced.

Perayil passed her CA exams in 2023 and started working at EY Pune in March 2024 as an executive. As it was her first job, she worked tirelessly to meet the expectations, but the effort had a significant impact on her physical, mental, and emotional health. Her mother stated, “She began experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, and stress soon after joining, but continued to push herself, believing hard work and perseverance were the path to success.”

Her mother stated that because several employees resigned due to the excessive workload, her daughter’s manager instructed her to stick around and change everyone’s opinion about the team. “Her manager would often reschedule meetings during cricket matches and assign her work at the end of the day, adding to her stress. At an office party, a senior leader even joked that she would have a tough time working under her manager, which, unfortunately, became a reality she could not escape,” Augustine added.

She further alleged that her daughter worked late into the night and even on weekends. “Anna confided in us about the overwhelming workload, especially the tasks assigned verbally, beyond the official work. I would tell her not to take on such tasks, but the managers were relentless. She worked late into the night, even on weekends, with no opportunity to catch her breath,” she said. 

Augustine described an occasion in which her daughter’s supervisor issued her an assignment at night with a deadline the next morning. She said, “Her assistant manager once called her at night with a task that needed to be completed by the next morning, leaving her with barely any time to rest or recover. When she voiced her concerns, she was met with the dismissive response: ‘You can work at night; that’s what we all do’.”

“Anna would return to her room utterly exhausted, sometimes collapsing on the bed without even changing her clothes, only to be bombarded with messages asking for more reports. She was putting in her best efforts, working very hard to meet the deadlines. She was a fighter to the core, not someone to give up easily. We told her to quit, but she wanted to learn and gain new exposure. However, the overwhelming pressure proved too much even for her,” the letter added.

“Anna was a young professional. Like many in her position, she did not have the experience or the agency to draw boundaries or push back against unreasonable demands. She did not know how to say no. She was trying to prove herself in a new environment, and in doing so, she pushed herself beyond limits. And now, she is no longer with us,” Augustine further expressed.

Augustine emphasized the sharp contrast between the company’s human rights statement and what her daughter experienced. She requested an answer, “How can EY begin to truly live by the values it professes?” The devastated mother stated that her daughter’s death should serve as a “wake-up call” for the company. “It is time to reflect on the work culture within your organization and take meaningful steps to prioritize the health and wellness of your employees,” she said. 

Augustine alleged that EY Pune staff did not attend her daughter’s funeral, which she found profoundly distressing. After her funeral, I contacted her managers but received no response. “How can a firm that talks about principles and human rights fail to support one of its employees in their dying moments?” the mother asked. 

While the specific reason for her death is unknown, the email stated that Perayil had complained of “chest constriction” many weeks before her death. “We took her to the hospital in Pune. Her ECG was normal, and the cardiologist came to allay our fears, telling us she wasn’t getting enough sleep and was eating very late. He prescribed antacids, which reassured us that it wasn’t anything serious,” she added. The 26-year-old woman died on July 20th. 

Netizens raised concern over the issue and slammed the company for imposing work pressure on the employees and not valuing their contribution. “This is so appalling and nasty!!! You work hard & crack one of the toughest exams in the country & then are expected to make huge sacrifices & severe alterations to your lifestyle thereby impacting your health & relationships – all this & no one from your team attends your funeral. Grim,” said one Malavika Rao who posted the letter sent by the deceased’s mother to the EY.

You work hard & crack one of the toughest exams in the country & then are expected to make huge sacrifices & severe alterations to your lifestyle thereby impacting your health & relationships – all this & no one from your team attends your funeral. Grim.

— Malavika Rao (@kaay_rao) September 17, 2024

“Work culture in India is horrendous, to say the least. An Indian employee never switches off even after official work hours and that is made the “acceptable” norm. Those who don’t work after the office are made to feel they are without work and are enjoying life. Regular calls after the office, no respite on weekends have seamlessly integrated our work culture,” said Parag Mandpe from Mumbai.

Work culture in India is horrendous to say the least. An Indian employee never switches off even after official work hours and that is made the "acceptable" norm. Those who don't work after office are made to feel they are without work and are enjoying life.
Regular calls after…

— Parag Mandpe (@ParagMandpe) September 17, 2024

Several others slammed the company and blamed its exhausting work culture.

Chartered Accountants working at Big4s confirm work stress

OpIndia spoke to CA Samruddhi Agarwal from Pune who confirmed that the work culture in the Big4 accounting companies like EY, PWC, Deloitte, etc is horrible, but the worst amongst them is EY. She said that they drain the employees to the core and expect them to work extra for significant results.

“They review people based on their performances and expect them to work even after office hours. People working there are expected to completely forget their personal lives. However, on the other hand, this is a competitive world and stress has unknowingly become part of every working individual. But suicide is not an option. People must prioritise their health in such cases,” she added.

OpIndia also spoke to CA Niel Soni from Mumbai, who has experience working with a Big4 accounting companies during early years of his career. He also confirmed that the work culture at EY is taxing. He said people often suffer a lot of health issues when working with such companies.

“This issue has come to the fore because Anna’s mother emailed the company. Otherwise, there are many such severe cases, if not death of course which go unreported. People run into depression, develop heart diseases and still keep on working as their performances are very strictly reviewed at such companies. If nothing, work culture needs to change,” he said.

It is crucial to note that last year, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy proposed that young Indians should commit to working 70 hours per week as a means to enhance the nation’s productivity. This suggestion of his attracted affirmation and criticism from society. But he did not change his opinion even in the year 2024 January when he said that all that his statement meant was people have to be very productive for the nation’s development.

While this sounds interesting and significant, people prioritizing their mental health in today’s competitive world has become a need. As per the statistics recently released by statista.com, around 11,486 people employed on a salary basis in private companies committed suicide due to work pressure in the year 2022, 2712 ended their lives while working in a public sector company and 2166 government servants committed suicide due to work stress. The numbers are alarming as such incidents continue to happen and have even slightly increased owing to societal pressures or family responsibilities.

4 major cases of suicide due to workload were reported this year

Several stuck in such stressful situations at times think of quitting their jobs, but societal pressures and the financial responsibilities of their respective families force them to continue to earn money at the cost of their mental health. Recently, in February this year, Saurabh Kumar Laddha, a 25-year-old consultant at McKinsey & Company jumped off the ninth floor of his apartment complex in Wadala after feeling pressured due to work.

Laddha, a graduate of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta, has worked with the strategic consulting business since August 2022. According to reports, the project he was working on was “highly demanding,” with Laddha under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines and deliverables.

In March 2024, two employees at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh committed suicide due to increased workload. Multiple workers’ associations at the centre later confirmed that the staff shortage leading to increased workload had caused heightened workplace stress levels among the deceased employees.

In July 2024, a 36-year-old IT professional, Vishal Pramod Salvi committed suicide by jumping into the riverbed in Bopodi, Pune, after being consistently harassed and humiliated by his manager. Salvi was recently fired from work and was consistently threatened by his work manager over work. He was also being threatened of public humiliation, as a result of which he decided to end his life.

According to the FIR filed in the case, the victim uploaded a picture of his manager on his WhatsApp status before death and stated in a note that the latter was to blame for his suicide. Zeeshan Haider, the manager of an IT company based in Yerwada had then been charged with instigating youth to commit suicide under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code.

Why nearly half of the working employees carry some kind of stress

According to studies, stress levels are rising among working Indians due to increased employment insecurity in a highly disruptive environment, as well as increased concern in personal lives. Increasing stress has resulted in a rise in the number of persons suffering from depression and at high risk of suicide. Employers face a growing issue in dealing with employees who are not only individually depressed but may also have a negative influence on the productivity of their organisations.

According to surveys undertaken by Optum and 1to1help.net, two of the top providers of employee support programs to Indian firms, there has been a considerable increase in the number of workers who are extremely depressed or are at risk of suicide as a result of increased stress. According to the findings of Optum’s most recent poll, nearly half of all employees in India experience some form of stress. The poll was carried out among 800,000 employees from 70 significant organizations, each with a minimum staff of 4,500 in the year 2018. 

The most prevalent sources of stress are work, money, and family, according to the studies. This is especially true for middle-level managers with children and loans to repay. Such employees are among the highest paid in their organizations, thus they are concerned that they will be the first to be laid off if the company is restructured. In their personal life, an increasing number of people as a result of this appear to be suffering from relationship problems and broken partnerships or marriages.

Furthermore, social media is increasing peer pressure to conform to a certain lifestyle such as going on a luxurious vacation which contributes to anxiety and leads to stress and depression.

Conclusion

Managing job stress is critical for sustaining mental and physical health, attaining long-term career success, and living a balanced, satisfying life. Individuals who successfully handle stress are more likely to do well over time. This leads to long-term job success because they can face obstacles with perseverance while maintaining a favourable work reputation.

Moreover, people at the individual level need to identify the level of stress that they can handle, and any job beyond that limit should be kept aside. In this competitive era, youngsters under the pressure to prove themselves have forgotten to say ‘no’, especially at their workplaces. It has become a norm that refusing to do a particular job or saying ‘no’ would reflect a rude attitude which somehow might affect the overall performance of an employee, which is never the case. Instead, a new norm needs to be normalized in which the employees can freely talk about the work stress to their managers and get things balanced out, for the betterment of both, the employee and the company. If not, there are always plenty of job options available to be jumped upon. After all, quitting a job is anyway a better option than quitting life!