Ed note: An EY employee who wished to remain anonymous asked us to post this letter to EY management regarding the recent layoffs at the firm because “management tends to ignore our questions when we raise them internally.”
Here is the letter:
Integrity and honesty are the foundations of public accounting. With great trust, the public and the Securities and Exchange Commission rely upon the information provided by accounting firms. An accounting firm thus holds substantial responsibilities and obligations to society. Among hundreds of accounting firms, Ernst & Young is one of the biggest four.
But at this one of the hardest moments of our history, EY is not being honest to its employees. EY falsely framed all the separations that have happened during these two weeks as performance-based separations. This statement is not honest. A lot of the employees who are currently on “performance improvement programs” (PIP) have not been let go. A lot of the people who had good written feedback were fired without prior notice. Those unfortunate people will then bear the name of “underperformers” when they leave the firm. At this hardest moment, EY is sadly manipulating the public’s perception of its secretive layoff.
We are angry. We are angry because EY lied to its employees. If we take the following statement as true: “If an employee has serious performance issues, such employee is on a PIP,” then the statement that “if an employee is not on a PIP, such employee does not have serious performance issues” must be also true. Then, we are asking this question now: Why are the low performers on PIPs still with the firm while those employees with good reviews were let go? We need an answer.
If you cannot accept that an accounting firm can announce to the public that you are let go because your performance was significantly below your peers all of a sudden; if you cannot accept that EY is not cutting off the low performers on PIPs first; you should demand an explanation from EY because you could be the next victim.
We can never be satisfied as long as any one of these employees is the victim of EY’s dishonesty!
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