1) EY India is a partner oriented firm. Hence, HR is only a puppet. Whatever partner says, that is the final word. Hence, you just cannot take your issues/grievances to the so called "HR" department here. If you can satisfy the leadership and keep your mouth shut, you will be in good books, else you know what to expect.
2) Promotions are literally a joke here. People whose caliber is not even of a Manager, are sitting at Senior Managers and even Director's post. People whose caliber is not even of a first year consultant are sitting at Senior consultants and Manager post. There are few folks who have got top rating for consecutive 4-5 years by doing nothing and just taking the credit of other's hard work. Leadership here purposely turns a blind eye to the hard work of really good employees and favors the so called toxic employees. I can guarantee you that if you are loyal to this leadership you can make it from a Senior consultant to a Director in 6 years!
3) Notice period - The loyalty factor towards partner is taken very seriously here. No matter how good you are, if you resign, your life is screwed in those 90 day notice period. You will be treated like as if you are a third grade employee. Trust me in your notice period, even if you have ample amount of leaves pending, you just cannot take leaves OR adjust the balance days against it just by reaching out to the HR as the concept of HR is only for namesake. If partner/director is okay, only then it will be approved. To summarize, the harassment level in the notice period is beyond words.
4) Rigged Quarterly Survey - There is survey that is triggered every quarter wherein every employee has a right to give feedback whether positive or negative regarding the team that he/she is working under. The email body clearly says that this is an confidential anonymous survey. However, what actually happens here is beyond another level. The partner tells his directors/senior managers/managers to take all junior folks over a call on screen share and gets the survey filled by forcefully putting top rating for almost all questions. This shows the credibility of this team/organization. And this malpractice has been happening for quite some time now.
5) Client Travel Reimbursement / Per Diem - This is again a super pain here as reimbursements are not approved on time. Leadership says that only when client pays the firm as per the given milestones, only then they would approve the reimbursements. There have been several cases that people have shelled out their own money for travelling for months without being given reimbursed. Per Diem is another joke here. When asked for a per diem, the so called leadership responds by saying that why do you need per diem when client is paying for your travel and stay. Also, reimbursements here are not payed completely. The cap is so less then an employee just gets severely frustrated as he/she has spent so much and the returns is only peanuts.
6) Non disclosure of actual details during interviews - The leadership along with HR does not disclose very sensitive things during the final round discussion during interviews. E.g. there is concept of Fixed Term Employment (FTE) which has been introduced to cut down on costs e.g. yearly bonuses. Folks hired on FTE are not given yearly bonuses. So, what happens here is that leadership and HR does not disclose on this FTE concept during interviews and many candidates misinterpret the word FTE as Full Time Employment and join the firm only to realize that they have been hired on a Fixed Term Employment for a period of 3 or 5 years. They even give incorrect information that yearly bonuses will be given which is totally false.
7) Travel during COVID-19 - Employees were forced to travel to work from client locations despite knowing the dangers of this deadly virus. If an employee said NO, then leadership straight away told them to book leaves under timesheet for those many number of days he/she cannot make it to office or travel to client locations.
8) Work ethics and timings - Work timings are again a joke here. You need to be available 24x7 whenever called. The partner/director has a habit of giving some random work on Friday evening and expecting it to be completed by Monday morning which ruins entire weekend. Even senior managers/managers are literally doing the same thing with the juniors. Work is so hectic that people are just bombarded with work thereby setting unrealistic timelines. Many employees have been mentally affected and even had heart attack during the the day of project go live.
9) Travel/Place of stay at client locations - This is again a nightmare here as the quality of listed hotels in the travel portal are very poor. An experienced Manager is made to stay in a 2 star hotel which is disgusting. I can only imagine the treatment for people down the ladder. Few locations given by the client for stay during the course of the project was so pathetic that I really have no words. i.e. it was literally a chawl. Couldn't believe that clients of EY India can even make folks to stay in a chawl.
10) Office decorum - The culture here is so pathetic that folks can't even chit chat during work. Even a slight laughter and a senior manager/director stands up and takes a note and then that person is called separately and taken left right and center.
11) Leadership qualities - There are highly toxic people here, severe backbiters, extremely good liars and superb diplomats. Backbiters will speak as if they are your best colleagues in the firm while behind your back, the case is totally different. The ones with extremely good liars are masters at taking information out of you. They will put you in a position wherein they will picturize that someone told something about you such that you automatically speak something which you shouldn't be speaking. Finally the superb diplomats see themselves as winners here i.e. they keep their bosses happy by showing how they can overpower their juniors and at the same time they keep the juniors happy by backbiting about their own bosses.
12) Sharing information with other regions (North/East/South) - Sharing useful information with other regions is a crime here. Helping resources from other regions for free is a crime here. Sharing information in general speak up sessions is literally taken as a negative feedback here. The aim of this team is only to get information from other clusters that's it.
13) Year end feedback - This is directly proportional to the loyalty factor with the leadership. If loyal, you will get good rating. This doesn't matter even if you are pathetic at work. If not loyal, despite being an ace performer, you will be given a sub-par rating.
14) Family connect sessions - Leadership constantly speaks about following hierarchy. E.g. if a consultant has a problem, he/she needs to reach out first to a senior consultant. If it's still not resolved then Manage and so on. This clearly shows that a partner is the least accessible person in the team
15) Exit Process - This is another pain at this firm as there is no formal system in which we can initiate resignation on the portal. We need to initiate an email to the counsellor by keeping the HR in loop, that's it. Your last working day confirmation will only come 3-4 days before your last working day which means an employee has to be continuously after the his/her counsellor, leadership and HR to get the LWD signed off officially over email.
Last but not the least, I have got the taste of one of the worst leadership folks ever for the first time in my entire career. I won't say it was a mistake to join EY, but it was definitely a learning to know that what kind of toxic people exist in the market today.
