Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the past few months, we've seen rolling scandals of unethical behaviour in the big four consultancies. It's evident the issues are not just confined to PwC; they stem from the big four business model and its voracious pursuit of profit. It's a business model that creates conflicts of interest, obscures transparency and raises questions about public value for money. One of the things that has emerged from shining a light in this sector is the consequences for the people who work there.

The recently released report on EY workplace culture, Independent Review into Workplace Culture at EY Oceania, led by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, has revealed systemic issues resulting from the damaging consulting business model. That report reveals the unreasonable workloads and long working hours of staff. The report found that 11 per cent of staff routinely work more than 61 hours a week. That is equivalent to working nine hours a day, seven days a week—far beyond the hard-won right of a 38-hour week. Extreme working hours have huge consequences for workers' mental and physical health, not to mention detracting from time spent with family and friends. One worker is quoted as saying:

… all I do is work, I have nothing to offer to my family, my marriage, my house. I got a promotion and a great raise but I have spent all that money and more on psychiatry and psychology and acupuncture just trying to keep going. I'm not actively looking but if I find another job, I will leave because I do feel like I am killing myself doing this.

The price of this oppressive, always-on culture at EY shapes the treatment of employees. Over the previous five years, 15 per cent of staff experienced bullying, 10 per cent experienced sexual harassment and eight per cent experienced racism. Unsurprisingly, the widespread unethical treatment of workers does not affect all equally. Women and minority groups are the most likely to experience less safety and less inclusion at EY. Long hours and low control especially affect those down the employment ladder. Employees in EY attribute the punishing working hours and myriad associated consequences to a business model focused on profit and delivery over people. It's a business model EY shares with the other big consultancies and many other professional services.

The draconian working arrangements revealed in this report not only affect staff at EY; they pervade the sector more broadly. The model of the ideal worker in these firms casts a long shadow. It assumes someone who always puts their job first, someone who is committed to long hours, someone who is always available to be contacted and who prioritises their work over the rest of their life. Because of this, the ideal worker in these firms is almost always a middle-aged man without care responsibilities—someone who can work long hours at the drop of a hat. That precludes many Australian workers from these jobs, particularly women with caring responsibilities or anyone who's looking after someone else some of the time. It locks women out of leadership.

We need a new definition of the ideal worker—someone who can work safe, reasonable hours, someone who's able to balance their obligations with the rest of their life, someone who can be both a leader and a mother. It should not be up to individual workers to stand up to their individual bosses to defend this balance. Instead, we need decent working rights and conditions and decent employment circumstances in companies like the big four. That's why my committee, the Senate Select Committee on Work and Care, which reported to the Senate in March, recommended that a right for all workers to disconnect from work be included in our National Employment Standards. We have to throw out the business model of the big four, and we should penalise firms that create unsafe working conditions.

This report on EY gives us a unique glimpse into what it's really like to work in one of these big firms. The findings are serious and shocking. No Australian business should be run on the stolen hours and health—even lives—of Australian workers. We must address the structural issues inside the consultant sector. Alongside an overhaul of consultancies, we need to reform our workplace relations law to improve working conditions and safeguard a worker's right to disconnect from their job, be healthy, have a life, have a family and keep their mental and physical health.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the matter of these incredible consultancy companies that are consuming so much of our time and energy in this place. These are companies with their names written in bright lights across the skylines of major cities around the world. It's certainly a very big feature in Sydney, on some of the best property landings in the country. Amongst them are the familiar letters: PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte.

I could have told EY some of the results that they have now had delivered to them by the very esteemed Elizabeth Broderick, because I have been reporting in this chamber. We have been hearing evidence and receiving information from whistleblowers about the appalling and toxic work culture in these big consultancy firms, particularly for new starters.

I want to acknowledge the importance of the fourth estate in getting this information out to the public, particularly the work of Neil Chenoweth, who really cracked the story about what was actually going on inside PwC and gave us the story of Peter-John Collins, which we've then been able to follow up here through the Senate.

The story of what's going on in these companies needs to be told in the public place so young people who are considering a career in one of these esteemed places know what they're getting themselves in for. Staff 'churn and burn' is one of the things that's been described. We know, from the evidence that we've received over many years and, again, in recent times, that there is an incredibly high level of turnover of staff—that is, of the lower level staff. Partners, on the other hand, seem to have cottoned on quite early that if they do a few really hard years and they accede to the incredibly blokey dominated culture, with most of the leadership being men at the senior level—if they can endure it long enough—then they can buy in and give themselves very, very, very large salaries.

In fact, it was put in this way in an article by Edmond Tadros recently. In his contribution on this matter in the public place on 1 August he said that EY, in response to the Broderick report for EY on the failings of their workplace and the 27 recommendations of the report:

… will run pilot programs aimed at improving the working conditions—but these programs will all cost money.

Partners will have to decide how much of their super-profits—average partner income is about $950,000—

And that is a figure that was put on the record here, in this parliament—

they will sacrifice to ensure more workers are put on projects. This compares with staff pay at the firm which begins at roughly $66,000 …

That is $66,000 for highly skilled, highly intelligent, really capable young Australians who've managed to get themselves through university and find themselves in a workplace where their skills are being put out for sale. I've heard figures of $1,500 to $2,000 a day. That's what these young graduates are bringing in. But they're so 'churned and burned' that they simply can't continue in the workplace. They're just fodder. Meanwhile, the partners above them are taking home an absolute fortune.

The article by Mr Tadros also states:

To achieve the massive annual recruitment requirement of bringing in thousands of new workers, the firm's marketing for potential employees makes no mention of a working week that regularly exceeds 61 hours for 11 per cent of workers and routinely tops 51 hours for 31 per cent of staff.

Listen to those numbers. My goodness! It's a wonder it's taken them until this year to get somebody in to do a report into the cultural problems at EY.

The good thing is that they did the report and they've accepted the 27 recommendations. Now, will they actually change the business model that is driving incredible profits for an insatiable model of doing business that they share with the other big accounting companies?

Senate adjourned at 19:54