The Head of Larger China Enterprise Consulting at EY has been accused of sexual harassment, in response to native studies. The allegations are understood to return from a advisor within the Massive 4 agency’s Hong Kong workplace.

The company tradition of EY in Asia and Oceania has come beneath additional scrutiny, after an allegation of sexual harassment made by considered one of its staff in Hong Kong which has gone viral on social media.

An open letter addressed to EY’s senior administration circulated on-line, which presupposed to be from a feminine worker on the agency. The letter claimed she and one other colleague had been sexually harassed by a senior male supervisor, within the presence of her superior and a number of other different workers.

The letter has since been reported on by the South China Morning Publish, and whereas the paper said it couldn’t “independently confirm” the authenticity of the put up, it did obtain a press release from EY on the matter. The Massive 4 agency instructed the Publish that it was conscious of allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct “towards a variety of EY personnel” circulating on social media, and {that a} report on the identical matter had been obtained by the corporate.

The assertion added, “We’ve got instantly commenced a proper strategy of unbiased investigation into the matter… Any breach of [EY’s global code of conduct] will lead to robust, decisive and proportionate disciplinary actions.”

Letter

In her letter addressed to “companions and leaders” of the agency, Nicole Wang, a Supervisor within the firm’s Hong Kong provide chain and operations consulting workforce, said her intent to report that Steven Xiong – a senior associate in Larger China – had sexually harassed her and a colleague.

On prime of this, nevertheless, the letter named the director of her workforce, Hilbert Tsang, and senior supervisor, Florence Tang, earlier than alleging that they had used “feminine subordinates as sexual sources for the advantage of their superior,” on prime of “office bullying behaviors together with maliciously smearing and stigmatizing victims afterwards.”

The letter added, “Sexual harassment within the office is the unscrupulous bullying and trampling of subordinates by superiors utilizing sources and energy. These days, the metoo motion is in full swing around the globe, and the voices supporting girls in society are deafening. As an govt who has labored in a prime multinational auditing and consulting agency for greater than ten years, they will use their energy and place to make such indecent and shameless actions and make such detached and harsh remarks in public. It’s actually stunning.”

Not the primary time

Within the wake of the discharge, EY additionally reiterated to the South China Morning Publish that the agency has a zero-tolerance coverage when it got here to unethical behaviour. Nonetheless, this isn’t the primary time that EY has confronted claims of a tradition of abuse throughout its Asia and Oceania places of work.

Printed in November 2022, the corporate’s newest ‘EY Oceania Worth Realised Scorecard’ – masking its Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea operations – confirmed 17 formal office investigations had been carried out within the final monetary 12 months, up from 12 the 12 months earlier than. A majority of 13 of these had been substantiated by the agency, within the 12 months working as much as the tip of June 2022 – 5 of which had been for sexual harassment, 4 for bullying, and the rest with parts of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment.

On the similar time, EY has been the topic of criticism for the pressures positioned on its workers in its Hong Kong workplace particularly. Specifically, one workforce chief within the workplace made world headlines for issuing orders to ‘work till 11.30pm each night time, and at weekends’ order. With office psychological well being an more and more outstanding problem within the skilled providers sector, it was not a message that was well-received.

EY shouldn’t be the one one of many world’s largest audit and advisory corporations struggling to enhance its inside behaviour and cultures, although. Members of the Massive 4 have every confronted a slew of scandals regarding workers accidents and ingesting tradition lately.

For instance, PwC was just lately taken to court docket by one workers member who endured a large head trauma, having allegedly been pressured to drink on a workforce occasion, by a supervisor. On the similar time, PwC and rivals KPMG additionally hosted ski retreats which culminated in allegations of sexual harassment by attending workforce members.