iscover Big four firm turns to remote working as virus threat looms
BusinessA big four firm will require all staff to work from home from Wednesday as it looks to mitigate the risks of the developing coronavirus situation.
EY chief executive Tony Johnson has now called on all of his Oceania staff to work remotely from 18 March for a 14-day period running to 31 March.
Further, all international and non-essential domestic travel will be restricted, with the big four firm set to repatriate all its staff who are currently overseas.
“The COVID-19 outbreak is unpredictable and affecting individuals, communities and businesses in many ways,” Mr Johnson said.
“Across EY, we continue to monitor and take advice from experts to ensure we support containment measures that protect the wellbeing of our people, our clients and the community.
“We understand this can be a time of uncertainty for many of our people, and we continue to have procedures and safeguards in place to ensure our people are supported during this period — their safety and wellbeing is our number one priority. Our teams are also working to communicate these changes to clients to ensure business continuity.”
The measures come after EY’s Brisbane office suffered a COVID-19 scare, with the staff member eventually testing negative for the novel coronavirus.
EY’s Brisbane office was open on Monday after the firm took an extra precautionary step in completing a sanitation cleaning of the office.
Jotham Lian
Jotham Lian is the editor of Accountants Daily, the leading source of breaking news, analysis and insight for Australian accounting professionals.
Before joining the team in 2017, Jotham wrote for a range of national mastheads including the Sydney Morning Herald, and Channel NewsAsia.
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