I read recently that a mckinsey employee committed suicide in India due to work pressure and no word or statement from mckinsey. Is that normal for MBB to ignore such incidents rather acknowledge and make changes. I attached the news below
Killer Work: Strained 25-Year-Old IIT, IIM Graduate And McKinsey Employee Dies By Suicide (msn.com)
This is terrible news. No job is worth jeopardizing your health, let alone your life. Any one job/career is just not important enough in the grander scheme of things. So if a job (or its environment) make you miserable, then you have to remove yourself from that and quit. Ultimely, you work so that you can enjoy life more - and not lose your life over it.
There are many other job opportunities out there, especially for people with experience in consulting. This is meant as a general statement, not specific to McK.
Many consulting firms have tried to address the work-life balance topic over the last years but, understandably, in their own selfish interest to keep the workforce “productive”, not necessarily to make everyone feel “good”. Consulting is project work measured in ever-expanding sales targets for the partners running these firms. The whole concept is inherently stressful. So I wouldn't expect that to change.
Best
It's a really sad thing that happened.
To my knowledge, they respond whenever any such significant events take place. Presumably, they haven't yet had the chance, or they are not aligned in terms of what they would like to communicate.
There are multiple changes already ongoing (I mentioned some of them in the articles below), but there is certainly space for more improvement:
Best,
Cristian
Don't mix responding to a relevant event and going public about it.
In my experience McKinsey takes any kind of incident seriously and professionally. There are internal mechanisms to deal with these situations. Important incidents are on top of top management agenda at McKinsey.
Best,
Alberto
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Check out my latest case based on a real MBB interview: Sierra Springs
Hi there,
Read about this.
Absolutely tragic. And, not surprising.
There is a ton of mental illness in these places and they are insanely stressful environments.
If anyone is reading this, working at these types of firms, and you have already tried many things (holiday, breaks, “survival” tips, etc.), just quit. It's not worth it if you are truly struggling.
They usually do not ignore such incidents (between being the right thing to do, and also being a reputation risk one needs to address, it is not something they ignore).
An investigation should happen. It is usually a matter of making sure that the right safeguards are in place - the job is tough, but shouldn't lead to this, and mental health issues should not be ignored.
