Supporting our people

We’re passionate about helping our people to achieve their potential. When our people achieve their best, we can help our clients achieve their best too.

We’ve developed a culture based on mutual respect and teamwork that promotes personal responsibility and initiative at all levels. Our 130,000 people in 140 countries share our values and our commitment to quality. Together, we strive to make a difference to each other, to our clients and to the communities in which we live and work.

We help our people succeed professionally and personally through leading training and development programs and ongoing coaching. We give them challenging and rewarding experiences that help them grow and expand their aspirations.

And being a truly global organisation, we support individuals who wish to apply their skills and experiences in new environments. Whether it’s a new service line, office or country they aspire to work in, we help them match their goals to our clients’ needs, around the world.

Our talented and motivated people make Ernst & Young a great place in which to work. They help us deliver on our promises to clients. We’re committed to attracting them, retaining them, and helping them be the best they can be – now and in the future.

Here are a few examples:

Dignity at work

The firm’s Global Values Statement highlights that we are people who demonstrate integrity, respect and teaming and who build relationships based on doing the right thing.

Ensuring that our people are treated with respect at work is clearly integral to these aspirations. Therefore, we expect everyone to behave in a professional and appropriate way towards colleagues, both at work and socially.

The Dignity at Work policy is designed to promote these aspirations and, in so doing, ensure that all staff members are aware of their responsibility to behave appropriately and to avoid behaviour that could be considered as offensive. It aims to do this by:

• Emphasising that all staff members should be treated fairly
• Giving examples of harassment and the types of behaviour that are inappropriate and will not be tolerated
• Giving practical advice to staff members on how to raise a complaint using a formal or informal route
• Reassuring staff members that any complaints will be dealt with seriously, promptly and in a sympathetic and confidential manner without risk of victimisation
• Informing staff members of what action could be taken against them if they do not adhere to the policy.

Diversity and inclusiveness

We want Ernst & Young to be a place that provides opportunities for all our people to succeed, regardless of their background. A diverse and inclusive approach is vital to achieving this.

Attracting, developing and retaining a more diverse and inclusive workforce
Recently we have been focusing even more on increasing retention of women and ethnic minorities and on broadening the talent pool from which we recruit. For example, our recruitment team has been developing innovative events targeted at different segments of the employment market, such as the ‘Real’ recruitment event for experienced black employees and graduate events for women and ethnic minorities.

Building relationships across a diverse and inclusive spectrum
We are also supporting a number of internal networks, including the Black Network, the South Asian Network, the Parents' Network and the Gay and Lesbian Society.

We benchmark ourselves regularly against other organisations and are proud of our high standards. But don’t just take our word for it: Read more.

We are advisory board members of Opportunity Now, members of Race for Opportunity, Stonewall Diversity Champions and members of the Employers’ Forums on Age and on Disability. In addition we are members of Aurora and participate in their cross corporate networking events for women and their WhereWomenWantToWork website.

Equal opportunities
The firm’s commitment to equal opportunities is underpinned by a comprehensive policy to ensure that applicants and staff are not treated unfairly on the basis of sex, marital status, race, ethnic and national origin, disability, religion, sexual orientation, age, and trade union membership or non-membership.

Flexible Working

The firm offers all staff the opportunity to take up a variety of both formal and informal flexible working options.

10% of staff have taken up a formal flexible working arrangement such as part-time working, annual days working, job share, working beyond normal retirement age or term time only working. Many staff will make use of informal arrangements such as working at home or flexible start and finish times and some staff will choose to take a career break or a period of unpaid leave during their career with the firm.

Here are a few examples from our people. Click here.

Learning & Development

Is there ever a point in your career when you stop learning? Not in our experience.

We recognise the value of investing in focused and rapid technical and personal development, driven by our business needs – development that continues throughout your career so that you can build on your strengths to fulfil your potential in the firm and increase your value in the market place.

At Ernst & Young learning is also about ‘on-the-job’ development through your day-to-day work experiences. This way, you can apply what you learn and embed your development quickly. To support this, the firm provides access to practical experience as well as classroom theory including access to quality secondments with clients or internally, both in the UK or overseas. This is in addition to developmental coaching, mentoring opportunities and work shadowing.

Maternity & Paternity

The firm has recently revised its maternity package and provides a range of support, both financial and non financial, to expectant and new parents. This includes:

• Increased maternity pay during maternity leave – up to 39 weeks paid leave
• Provision of childcare vouchers for 12 months on return from maternity leave
• Development of a parent network
• Promotion of support from counselling managers
• Ongoing promotion of flexible working
• The option to purchase childcare vouchers while making tax and NI savings
• Paid paternity leave

Reward

We realise that pay is only one element in the overall proposition to our people. Although a powerful motivator, financial reward is not in itself going to engage our people on an ongoing basis.

The firm’s joined up approach to reward is best demonstrated in the wide-ranging elements that make up the total reward offering in the firm:

More specific examples of rewards include:

• Market competitive base pay for our people
• Higher levels of pay, in advance of the market, to those who excel and contribute the most
• A competitive package of flexible employment benefits that can be tailored to individuals' needs or circumstances
• Recognition of exceptional achievement by teams or individuals
• Salary progression and promotion to reward contribution
• A small number of market driven bonus schemes designed to maintain the firm’s place in a particular pay market where structurally, base pay alone would not enable us to recruit or retain effectively
• Action to ensure equal pay between men and women including a regular equal pay audit
• Competitive, flexible pension arrangements
• Extensive flexible working programmes and informal arrangements to promote flexibility at work
• High quality learning and development opportunities (including secondments and leadership programmes) to enable our staff to fulfil their potential rapidly. We have been awarded the Investors in People Standard in recognition of our good practice for training and development of our people to achieve business goals.
• A culture and working environment that engages our people.

Voicing your opinion

Integrity, respect and teaming are central to our culture at Ernst & Young, and good communication is vital to this goal. We want to engage the broadest spectrum of our people around the opportunities and challenges that the firm faces and we face as individuals.

eyvoice, the firm’s employee consultation forum, is made up of 15 elected representatives from across the firm. In addition the Chairman and the Director of Internal Communications are permanent eyvoice members. As a consultation forum, eyvoice is more than just another communication channel – it is a chance for the leadership and our people to engage constructively on important areas. The members of the forum develop their agenda based on their personal experience. The opportunity for employees to engage in genuine consultation with the firm’s leaders is rare among professional services firms, where usually only partners have access to such detail.