The 2022 Best Firms to Work For: EY

Client Industries Served: Advanced Manufacturing, Consumer Products and Retail, Energy and Resources, Financial Services, Government and Public Sector, Health Sciences and Wellness, Private Equity, Real Estate, Hospitality, Construction and Technology, Media and Telecommunications.

Consulting Service Lines: Strategy, Operations, Financial Support, IT

CMAG: How would you say you've managed to stay among the industry's Best Firms to Work For amid these unprecedented times?

At EY we believe diverse, purpose-driven teams coupled with a culture of innovation and respect for the individual builds trust, welcomes a diversity of ideas and inspires impactful results for our clients. Whether it's navigating a pandemic or a personal challenge, we provide our people with benefits, programs and initiatives to meet their unique needs. Some of the ways we do this are flexibility in when and where our people work; reimbursement for out-of-pocket costs associated with commuting, dependent care and pet care; and access to counseling and mental health coaching sessions. During turbulent times, it can be too easy for people to focus on the problems feeding negativity and generating stress. Leaders must show, communicate, and implement solutions that show things will be okay. One motivational technique I use with my team is the celebration of big and small wins. Rather than getting caught up in the long-term goals, we celebrate our achievements continuously along the way. This is always important, but even more so when people are burdened by non-work stresses too.

CMAG: Were there any specific programs or initiatives (internal or external) that contributed to you being a Best Firm to Work For?

We know how hard the last few years have been on our teams, and we've made significant investments to make their lives easier. Here are just a few programs that have helped contribute to our standing as a Best Firm to Work For:

Last year, we implemented our EY Way of Working (EY WOW), which empowers individuals and teams to determine how and where they can do their best work – at the client site, EY office, or remote location (i.e., home). To help our people come together for the moment that matter, we established a short-term benefit — EY WOW Transition Fund. It reimbursed out-of-pocket expenses associated with hybrid teaming, commuting, dependent care and pet care. This benefit has been used by 29,500 EY people and the firm has reimbursed $22 million.

At the start of 2022, we expanded our Wellbeing Fund, which reimburses our people up to $1,000 a year, to include items like mattresses, gaming consoles and vacation lodging and travel, among other items. This is our most popular benefit with 90 percent of EY people using it.

The Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence drive EY innovation through hiring and onboarding individuals who are neurodiverse.

EY Unplugged provides the opportunity for first-year staff to build relationships with peers, counselors, mentors, allies and sponsors, and learn from the experiences of seasoned professionals. This program has impacted more than 4,400 Black, Latinx, and Asian professionals to date.

EY Ripples, our global Corporate Responsibility program that provides our people the opportunity to positively impact the lives of millions of individuals by using their skills, knowledge and experience.

Sponsorship programs help high-performers across diversity dimensions gain equitable access to influential sponsorship, visibility and assignments, enhancing opportunities for career growth and progression.

CMAG: What's unique about your firm? What sets it apart?

In Consulting, we are building a better working world by transforming businesses through the power of people, technology, and innovation. It's our ambition to become the world's leading transformation consultants. The diversity and skillsets of our 26,000+ people help clients realize transformation objectives by putting humans at the center, delivering technology at speed and leveraging innovation at scale. These core drivers create long-term value for people, clients and society.

We apply a multidisciplinary approach to offer our clients collaborative solutions in conjunction with technology. We have deep sector experience as well as finance and accounting, supply chain, compliance, risk, regulations and more to bring transformative solutions that address the most complex problems our clients face today.

CMAG: What's the top priority over the next 6 to 12 months?

Transformation is a constant for all organizations, but success is far from guaranteed. We know that the recipe for success is rooted in our people. We recently partnered with the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford on research and found that companies that prioritize workforce emotions in the workplace are 2.6 times more likely to succeed in the execution of their transformation strategies. This gives us concrete evidence that the key to turning transformation failure into success relies on the ability of organizations and their leaders to completely redesign transformations with people at the center. Technology is meaningless without people, and the value of prioritizing those who are benefiting from the technology. There's a magic that happens when you balance technology with humanity, and we are focused on using this approach to bring solutions to all aspects of our clients' businesses.

CMAG: When you look at the remainder of this year and 2023, what excites you? What opportunities do you see in your future?

What excites us the most for the remainder of the year and 2023 is that we are starting to see corporate technology investments shift from being a side dish to THE main course. Our clients are adopting new technologies at a pace I have not seen in my 25 years of consulting, and it is truly an exciting time. Today, we are empowered to mine more value from more data, aid decision-making with machine learning or artificial intelligence, reimagine global supply chains and customer experience, while also using less carbon, and prepare for a post quantum future. We are investing in these technologies alongside our clients, and I am constantly amazed at the tech-enabled, people-led solutions our teams bring forward every day.

The ESG movement is also at a critical moment. Organizations must respond to investor interest that is growing to historically high levels on the topic. Additionally, businesses need to understand and respond to new SEC proposals to enhance and standardize disclosures registrants make about climate-related risks, targets and goals; their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and how the board of directors and management oversee climate-related risks. This confluence of pressure points is requiring CEOs and CFOs to take a hard look at how sustainability fits within their overall strategy, and EY is excited to help leading organizations better navigate into a more sustainable future for us all.

CMAG: What impact do you think being a Best Firm to Work For has on the firm? Employees? Clients?

For our people, it means they are getting the recognition they deserve. They bring creativity, critical thinking, ingenuity, and kindness to our organization and to our clients every day. They make EY a Best Firm to Work For, and this honor will continue to make them proud of the effort they put in daily.

CMAG: Thank you, and congratulations.