We value the strength of difference in thought and perspective. To enable the mix of people in the firm to reach their full potential, we have taken action in a number of ways.
Leadership
Leadership is key to the success of our diversity and inclusiveness agenda and it is the support and involvement of our leadership that is crucial to the success of our work. We have a partner-led Diversity and Inclusiveness Steering Group, which meets regularly to drive diversity and inclusiveness further into our business.
Career development
We have a number of actions under way to ensure that everyone at Ernst & Young can develop to their full potential. These include ‘Career Watch’ a programme to ensure that we manage the career progression of our minorities; remarketing our Accelerated Leadership Programme to ensure that a wide range of people apply for it; targeted development programmes for women; and reviewing our partner promotion process to ensure it is inclusive.
Our networks
To celebrate and support our increasingly diverse workforce, we are proud to support a number of networks in the firm. All of them are inclusive – anyone with an interest in the network may join.
We support these networks for several reasons. We want to bring communities with similar backgrounds or experiences together in order to connect all of our people. And we want to increase their sense of belonging to the firm.
Networks are also another way that our people can achieve their potential – network members often participate in recruitment programmes, formal and informal mentoring schemes and targeted development programmes.
Networks have a key role in building relationships with other organisations, including clients.
The networks we currently support are EY Black Network, EY Disability Working Group, EY Far East Network, EY Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Network (EYGLES), EY Parents' Network, EY South Asian Network and EY Women's Network.
Our EY networks are very active with members investing a great deal of energy and passion into activities such as:
Life balance
One of the most important factors for our employer value proposition is life balance. It is a key factor in attracting both graduates and experienced hires. We believe that we are not competing for talent against just our business competitors, but against anything else our people could do with their life – start a family, become a carer, go travelling or start their own business. The more flexibility we offer, the easier it is for us to attract people who would otherwise never consider it possible to balance the competing demands on their time.
We launched our ‘Work Smart’ programme two years ago. This programme encourages a change in mentality – rather than looking at where and when our people work, we are trying to concentrate on what they achieve.
Our focus now is encouraging our managers to explore new ways of working which we hope will include more innovative work models.
We offer all our people – men and women – the opportunity to take up a variety of both formal and informal flexible working options such as part time, career breaks, job shares, term time working, working from home and working beyond normal retirement age.
10% of our people have taken up a formal flexible working arrangement and many more make use of informal arrangements. Find out what some of them say.
Communication and awareness
Whilst it is important to ensure that potential candidates are aware of what Ernst & Young is doing, our own people need to feel and see the impact of diversity and inclusiveness. Communication and awareness of this progress within the firm is therefore crucial. As a part of this effort, we have been running a campaign to raise awareness on diversity and inclusiveness which involves debunking some of the myths – such as “networks are exclusive”, “clients don’t want flexible workers on their team” and “relationship building is best done in the pub”. The campaign includes case studies, posters and videos.
We are also running awareness workshops for all our partners to ensure that they are able to lead our diversity and inclusiveness strategy.
Policies in place
All of our policy information and documentation is available to all staff through our intranet site. We review our benefits including our maternity and paternity benefits on a regular basis, and we have conducted equal pay audits annually. We offer an Employee Assistance programme and support to all our people through a web-based concierge service.
Working with external partners
We work with many external partners, to promote diversity and inclusivenes s. For example, we are advisory board members of Opportunity Now, corporate champion members of Race for Opportunity, Stonewall Diversity Champions, gold members of the Employers Forum on Disability and members of the Employers Forums on Age. In addition we are members of Working Families and Diversity Works for London.
Our values
Everything we do at EY is underpinned by our values. We believe that integrity and respect for others and creating an inclusive team environment are the right things to do, and that an organisation that does not behave in an inclusive way is not one we want to be part of. Integrity, respect and teaming are cornerstones of our values and underpin everything that we do as a firm.
Our Values Statement
Who We Are and What We Stand For:
People who demonstrate integrity, respect and teaming.
People with energy, enthusiasm and the courage to lead.
People who build relationships based on doing the right thing.
