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EY workers who thought they could multitask by taking multiple training courses at once were shocked to learn they’d violated company rules and were being fired.
Dozens of workers at the accounting and consulting firm were sacked last week for what EY said amounted to cheating, the Financial Times reported.
The company said taking the online training courses concurrently was an ethical breach.
“Our core values of integrity and ethics are at the forefront of everything we do,” EY told the FT. “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 U.S. learning policy.”
Workers told the outlet they had no clue they would be fired for multitasking, especially since the training on digital brands and AI seemed unimportant. The punishment seemed disproportionate to the alleged misconduct, they said.
“We all work with three monitors. I was hoping to hear new ideas that I could bring to the table to separate myself from others,” one person said.
Another told the FT that EY “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?” the fired employee said.
The incident comes as employers are increasingly cracking down on what they see as workers abusing the system. Meta (META+0.85%) recently fired employees for using meal credits for household items. Wells Fargo (WFC+1.02%) sacked employees earlier this year who were caught faking keyboard activity to make it seem like they were working.