The employees were taking part in online classes this spring as part of the consulting giant’s ‘Ignite Learning Week,’ The Financial Times reported. Employees at the Big Four firm are required to spend a certain amount of their time each year on such courses, earning a mandatory amount of professional continuation credits as a result. The staffers who were unceremoniously let go said they weren’t attending two sessions at once to accumulate these credits faster, insisting it was because they didn’t want to miss out on simultaneous sessions. The employees who no longer work at EY told the FT they were just trying to take advantage of all the sessions they wanted to attend, and added the company bred a culture of multi-tasking. They also claimed EY never told staffers they shouldn’t be attending multiple meetings at once. But in a statement to the FT, EY said the employees’ actions went against the company’s code of conduct: “Our core values of integrity and ethics are at the forefront of everything we do. “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.”EY did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. While some might argue being fired for attending multiple online calls seems like a harsh punishment, EY has already been forced to pay dearly for employees who abuse internal training and testing systems. In 2022, EY was told to pay $100 million to the SEC after staffers were found to have cheated on ethics exams required to obtain and maintain Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licenses.EY was also accused of withholding evidence in the SEC’s investigation into the matter. As well as paying the fine, EY said it would take on two independent consultants to address the problems relating to both ethics and transparency. EY has reportedly updated its direction regarding future Ignite weeks, specifying that only one class should be attended at a time.Meta violationsEY isn’t the first major employer to crack down on staffers abusing policy regulations, and it is unlikely to be the last.Last week, Meta reportedly let go of a handful of staff members for misusing its meal credit scheme. Writing on Blind, a professional social media site for the tech industry, one Meta staffer outlined that employees are given a $25 Grubhub credit if they work past 6 p.m. in offices that don’t have cafeterias on site.However, a further post seen by Fortune on the Blind platform claimed the disgraced staffers were ordering food when they weren’t even on-site, were giving their credits to other members of staff, or were using the credits to buy groceries and household essentials.For example, one individual claimed to have spent their $25 credit on items like toothpaste and tea from pharmacy Rite Aid, adding that if they had made alternative dinner arrangements they felt they “ought not to waste” the perk.Recommended newsletter Next to Lead: Get the strategies and insights you need to make it to the corner office, delivered to your inbox each week. Sign up here.
