Maintaining a diverse culture
Our competitive advantage is highly dependent upon our ability to leverage the differences of our people to create diversity of thought. Ernst & Young has been recognized for its efforts in maintaining a diverse culture with a number of awards, including FORTUNE's "100 Best Companies to Work For" for 12 consecutive years, Hispanic Business magazine's Diversity Elite Top 60 for Hispanics, DiversityInc magazine's Top 50 Companies for Diversity, BusinessWeek’s “Best Places to Launch a Career” list and Universum USA’s ranking as the No. 1 employer for undergraduate business students.
Maintaining an inclusive environment at Ernst & Young — one in which all of our people can achieve their potential — is the main focus of the Inclusiveness Recruiting Team. They work with national and local organizations that promote the interest of minority groups and diverse professionals while encouraging the leaders of tomorrow. As a result of our efforts, team leaders are often called upon to share best practices and participate as speakers and panelists at professional events.
Inclusiveness recruiting
Historically, Ernst & Young was the first of the Big Four to assign full-time, partner-level leadership to the important area of minority recruiting. Today, our Inclusiveness Recruiting Team is responsible for attracting and recruiting top talent from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. We’ve kept a dedicated focus on attracting women and minorities, both experienced hires and campus recruits; and we’ve expanded our efforts to address all aspects of inclusiveness, including physical ability and sexual orientation with translating our vision into action-oriented goals, beginning at the local level. And at the Ernst & Young Minority Leadership Conference, minority executives meet with Americas Executive Board members to examine issues and share ideas and best practices regarding diversity and our workplace culture.
Our Inclusiveness Recruiting Team seeks to raise awareness of accounting as a profession – starting at the high-school level – and provides early internship programs to diverse students to expose them to and prepare them for a career in professional services. We also work closely with universities to promote diversity and inclusiveness on campus. Some programs and initiatives include:
- Accounting Career Awareness Program (ACAP) – One-week summer programs held at colleges and universities introduce minority high-school students to the professional workforce and encourage them to consider pursuing accounting careers.
- Leadership and Development (LEADS) – We join the University of Illinois College of Business to sponsor LEADS, a program to introduce high-school students to business and accounting careers.
- Minority scholarships – In the recent past, with the help of the Ernst & Young Foundation, we have committed more than $7.5 million to fund scholarships for undergraduate and graduate degree candidates majoring in accounting, IT, finance and related subjects.
- Multi-year internships – We provide students with the opportunity to intern as part of our Horizon Internship Program, a developmental program that over 300 interns participate in each year. We source candidates through non-profit organizations, such as INROADS and through our own sourcing efforts on campus.
Discover Tax Diversity Leadership Conference
Each year, 100 diverse accounting students from across the U.S. gain a greater appreciation for and understanding of what a tax career is like, thanks to "Discover Tax," Ernst & Young's annual tax diversity leadership conference, which takes place in New York City.
Diversity strategy and development
Our diversity strategy and development efforts create strategies and programs that support career development, workforce planning, communication and leadership accountability on behalf of our minority professionals. Much focus is placed on education, mentoring and networking, which not only exemplifies our support for diverse professionals but also seeks to engage all of our people to be catalysts and change agents for creating an inclusive and respectful work environment. Support for these efforts starts at the most senior levels of Ernst & Young. Our Americas Executive Board and senior leadership have taken defined roles for growing our diverse culture.
An Ethnicity Diversity Task Force is charged with translating our vision into action-oriented goals, beginning at the local level. And at the Ernst & Young Minority Leadership Conference, minority executives meet with Americas Executive Board members to examine issues and share ideas and best practices regarding diversity and our workplace culture.
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