EY-employee's death: Experts say 'compassion' can reduce such incidents; demand specific policy

Pune: As the death of an EY employee allegedly due to 'overwork' has sparked a debate in the corporate world, senior executives from various companies have opened up about workload and stress in the corporate sector and the manner in which it can be handled.
Corporate Outbound Expert Tanmay Pendse appealed to the government to frame "specific policies" that will help in tackling such situations.
"We are training people for the last 15-16 years and through the management activities, we make sure that such sessions are included which helps in reducing the stress...After employees reach home they should spend good time with their family and stay away from mobile phones...I appeal to the government to come up with a specific policy so that these kind of situations can be tackled. Yoga sessions should be started in every organization...," Pendse said.
Speaking on the incident, Associate Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Nikhil Badgujar, stressed how one should manage stress as it always remains an "unavoidable factor".
"Whatever happened is very unfortunate. People need to understand how to react to stress. Stress is relative, as, the stress I am feeling is not the same for the other person. People to understand how to react. I can easily understand this as these things are very common nowadays. We need to think about how we can reduce the impact. This is the only thing we can manage. Stress cannot be avoided but it can be managed. In the corporate world stress is a part of our life...We need to understand how to react to that...We are the solution makers itself..." Badgujar said.
Sharing his experience, Process Specialist at Infosys, Anand Kulkarni, agreed with the existence of stress in the workplace but said that one should know how to handle stress.
Reacting to the EY employee death allegedly due to 'overwork', Process Specialist at Infosys, Anand Kulkarni said, "Being in the corporate for more than ten years, I have been experiencing and observing a lot of work stress...I handle stress by enjoying the work...Stress does exist in the corporate world but it is all about how you handle it..."
Pointing out factors, including "compulsive obsession for certain desires," that make individuals work more, author and educator Pushkar Aurangabadkar said that compassion and the longing for spiritual wisdom can help people to drill down the compulsion and loneliness they are facing in the corporate world.
"The incident is very painful and it has a lot to do with the kind of aspirations that we have these days. The majority of which comes from the compulsive obsession for owning a lot of things. It is not just the trap of corporate but we also need to consider what makes people get into these traps in the first place where they get social pressure to buy necessary certain commodities which pushes them to be in certain domains and profiles in the first place. Also, the corporate system, which is again driven a lot by the tangibles of the industry and all these things come together to create pressure. It's definitely painful," Aurangabadkar told ANI.
"But there are means and ways in which this can be handled in a better way and as a society, we should be taking care of it. It depends on corporate culture and as everyone might be aware every company has a different culture. It depends from company to company what kind of culture they have that defines how much pressure is getting instituted in that organisation. But beyond that what I believe is compassion and the longing for spiritual wisdom need to be promoted in society because it can possibly reduce the possibility of such incident. The reason is that beyond the pressure people are facing in corporate, it drills down the compulsion and loneliness that we are facing and the answers to which may lie in the compassion..." Aurangabadkar said.
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Saturday took suo motu cognizance of the death of a chartered accountant girl from Kerala in Pune reportedly due to excessive workload in her company.
The Commission has also issued a notice to the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment for a detailed report in the matter within four weeks.
The Commission has also called businesses to review their work culture, employment policies and regulations to ensure alignment with global human rights standards.
"The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India, has taken suo motu cognizance of media reports that a 26-year-old chartered accountant girl from Kerala died in Pune, Maharashtra, on 20th July 2024, allegedly, due to excessive workload in the Ernst & Young that she joined four months back," as per an official press release.
The mother of the young professional had written a letter to the employer claiming that long hours of work had taken a heavy toll on her daughter's physical, emotional and mental health, a charge denied by the company. The Union Ministry of Labour and Employment is investigating the matter.