Mumbai
: The Big Four global consulting firms (KPMG, EY, PwC and Deloitte) rely heavily on one key asset: their people. This workforce is also their most expensive asset, so their business models rely heavily on maximizing the use of their employees.
But now, all this has taken its toll – recently, a 26-year-old chartered accountant died four months after joining Ernst & Young in Pune. Her parents attributed her death to work stress.
EY said on Wednesday it was “deeply saddened” by the employee’s death and said it “will continue to look for ways to improve and provide a healthy workplace,” but executives at the Big Four accounting firms also acknowledged the stress of the job.
“Unlike other industries, the only asset in consulting firms is their human resources. Here, employee utilization is at its highest. Unlike the IT industry, there is no concept of ‘back-ups’ in consulting firms,” said a senior partner at Deloitte who wished to remain anonymous. “So there is a lot of pressure, especially in teams that bill on a results-based basis.”
Utilization represents the percentage of employees who are involved in active projects, while “residence” refers to employees who have not yet been assigned a project.
To be sure, long hours and high levels of stress are not unique to consultancies. The so-called “hustle culture” of start-ups has been both decried and praised. If Infosys Ltd. co-founder NR Narayana Murthy and Ola Electric Ltd.’s Bhavish Aggarwal have been applauded for advocating a minimum 70-hour work week, they have also attracted detractors.
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But the Big Four are starting to pay the price.
Sixteen-hour workdays, frequent meetings and weekend client pitches are contributing to a disturbing trend: Young professionals are leaving in a hurry. Companies that were once in high demand during business school recruiting season are now seeing entry-level and mid-level employees burn out and quit after just a few years.
According to consultants, the turnover rate of junior staff in India’s consulting industry was estimated at 20-22% last year, while the turnover rate of mid- and senior-level staff was 10%.
“I had to go to client sites six days a week for 2-3 hours a day, come back in the evening, and get back to my laptop,” said a former employee of a consulting firm who left the company three years ago. “Since I was on the risk and compliance team working for a telecom client, the weekends went by very quickly, and there were escalated issues almost every day.”
Another former employee, a cybersecurity analyst who worked for one of the Big Four for eight years, recalled having to cater to clients in three different time zones — serving Indian companies in the morning, West Asian clients in the afternoon and European companies in the evening.
“Sometimes deadlines clash and for projects like ours, we have to learn on our own as the technology being used is constantly evolving,” said the New Delhi-based analyst, who has now joined a financial firm.
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All-round pressure
A senior partner at one of the Big Four accounting firms said it was not uncommon for young staff to be hospitalised, especially because they work 14 to 16 hours a day in their first few years.
A senior partner at a rival consultancy added that the volume of work had increased in recent years. “Clients now want more options… The number of permutations per project has increased, and the failure rate has gone up.”
“Considering the changing pace of business, reconciling work and life and reducing stress is indeed a challenge we have to address,” a representative of Deloitte India said in an email to Mint.
The consultancy is offering employees flexible working models, with “hybrid” as the default setting, and has introduced a company-wide freeze on work at the end of the year, the company said.
“We also include well-being as part of our goals. The requirement is to take at least two days off per quarter, which is reflected in the burnout dashboard,” said a Deloitte representative, highlighting other initiatives such as a counselling hotline and a peer-to-peer network of mental health advocates.
A KPMG spokesperson highlighted similar policies and initiatives, including counselling for the firm’s employees and their families, and regular health checks as part of wellness measures.
PwC has yet to respondMint Inquiry.
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The Big Four accounting firms compete with other consulting firms such as Accenture and McKinsey for talent, offering annual salaries of ₹The annual salary of a junior employee is 2.5-3.5 lakh rupees. The annual salary of a junior chartered accountant can reach ₹10-15 lakhs per annum excluding bonuses.
As with law firms, consultants at the Big Four can choose to become equity partners, which receive a cut of the firm’s revenues, or fixed-income partners, who receive a fixed salary with other compensation tied to the firm’s performance.
The Big Four accounting firms are also facing their own pressures as competitors poach their top talent. As risks increase in the fields of artificial intelligence, business transformation and digital consulting, India’s global consulting blue chip firms have recently seen top partners jump ship..
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