EY: Building exceptional workplace experiences

The development of our people is central to EY’s strategy. We are committed to ensuring that our 250 000 employees around the globe have an exceptional experience. Since each person’s career journey is unique, we enable our people to achieve the career they want through the opportunities and development tools we provide.

Our people are our strongest asset in delivering on our commitment to building a better working world. Consequently, our employee value proposition – which reads: “Whenever you join, however long you stay, the exceptional EY experience will last a lifetime” – is the bedrock of our culture. This proposition demands that we attract the best, invest in them to make them competitive, develop leaders and create a fun working environment.

Real-time development

Businesses, clients and the needs of employees are constantly evolving, as work environments change and workforces become more global. At EY, we are putting in place and shaping processes to adjust to the changing environment. LEAD, our transformed performance management programme, focuses on conversations that inspire career and development aspirations rather than on backward-looking performance evaluations.

This forward-looking programme allows our people to review feedback on their work every 90 days. This means that they receive ongoing feedback and use it in their day-today work, instead of waiting until the end of the year. It also means that our employees play a bigger role in discussions and decisions involving their own growth.

LEAD also eliminates the use of numeric ratings in the performance management process. Furthermore, it is enabled by technology. As such, it makes use of platforms such as a personal digital dashboard to ensure that our people can receive real-time feedback on their work from anywhere in the world, and can assess their own performance relative to that of their peers.

LEAD also enables our people to gain the necessary digital skills so that they can better understand and work with complex data analytics, robotics and artificial intelligence.

Workplace flexibility

One of the ways we are ensuring that our people have an exceptional experience at EY is by enabling a flexible working culture. This has allowed us to be more agile and responsive to the different needs of our teams and clients.

Through EY@Work, we provide our people with the opportunity to work from anywhere at any time. Energising and efficient workspaces and technology are at the heart of EY@Work, allowing employees to choose a workspace conducive to their style of work. EY@Work makes for better teaming and interaction between our people and our clients.

Nurturing a better society

With our commitment to building a better working world, we’ve deployed a global awards programme, Better Begins with You, that recognises our people for their contribution to our clients and communities.

Global winners, who are selected by their peers, receive between $250 000 and $1-million per category, which they invest in a project related to their winning initiative.

Diversity and inclusiveness

As a global business, we embrace differences that encompass culture, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, identity, leadership style and other factors.

This is because we believe differences matter. Having a diverse and inclusive workplace allows us to tap into the collective views and ideas of all our people. We were recently recognised for our role in empowering women in the workplace.

Employee wellbeing

The development and growth of our people is not only focused on their professional careers. Consequently, we have a wellness strategy that encompasses spiritual, emotional, physical and financial wellbeing. As part of this strategy, we strive to ensure healthy living and healthy behaviour through targeted wellness activities in the firm. Our wellness culture has previously won us the Healthiest Employees Award in the Discovery Healthy Company Index and we were the runnersup for the Healthiest Company Award.

At EY, we understand the impact and benefits of a collaborative relationship with our people. Every day, they inspire us to serve their evolving needs. Investing in our people comes naturally to us. They are, after all, the reason we remain in business and continue to live our purpose of building a better working world.