Death of MNC executive in Pune rattles Gurugram

The death of a 26-year-old employee of Ernst & Young in Pune allegedly due to “excessive workload” has rattled the cyber city Gurugram. A hub of many IT firms and MNCs in the North, Gurugram has around 350 Fortune 500 companies along with around 2,000 start-ups.

The news has made techies, MNC employees and companies rethink the work-life balance.

Though none of the top companies spoke about the incident openly, sources told The Tribune that a majority of the MNCs have started a sensitisation programme of employees at the managerial level to help them manage teams better and with more sensitivity and apathy. The HR Departments have been asked to track and report excessive overtime by any specific teams and employees.

The issue has caught attention of political leaders in Gurugram in the Haryana Assembly polls as Congress leader Vardhan Yadav announced that if elected, Congress would set up a MNC employee welfare unit and desk to help them in and out of office along with a detailed work from Home policy.

“Gurugram is millennium city owing to MNCs and their employees. During my election campaigns, many people told me that they didn’t want to vote because they thought an MLA could do nothing to help their corporate life . This rattled me. We have already been working on bringing a ‘work from home’ policy and will also work to ensure a good working environment in all corporates,” said Vardhan Yadav. A grievance cell would be constituted in the district for all corporate employees to voice their complaints and concerns, he added. A youth Congress leader, Vardhan is a candidate from Badshahpur.

It may be noted that the corporate world and entire social media shook when 26-year-old Anna Sebastian Perayil lost her life and her mother shot a letter to the global accounting giant blaming “four months of EY’s callous attitude” for her death. Perayil, a Chartered Accountant from Kerala, had joined the company in March.

“Nobody from EY even attended her funeral,” Anita Augustine wrote in the gut-wrenching letter addressed to EY India Chairman Rajiv Memani that has gone viral, sparking outrage over the young woman’s ordeal. In its statement, EY said it was deeply saddened by Anna’s death and that it provided all the assistance to her family.

Congress makes it a poll issue

• The issue has caught attention of political leaders in Gurugram in the Haryana Assembly polls as Congress leader Vardhan Yadav announced that if elected, Congress would set up a MNC employee welfare unit and desk to help them in and out of office along with a detailed ‘work from home’ policy
• MNCs have started a sensitisation programme of employees at the managerial level to help them manage teams with apathy