Company: EY
Date: 2014-10-31
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

EY: Unnecessary Distinctions of Hierarchy
Pros: Access to gym, options to work from home, internal temps, fantastic IT support - the best IT support I've ever had in a workplace. EY has a 24 number you can call for support and you actually speak with someone! In fact, you can speak with someone even to reset passwords and they action these requests quickly! I found local IT people to be very helpful and on one occasion when I ended up with malware on my computer, they were extremely helpful and not at all aggressive about its removal. I believe EY IT support services have a very good escalation process.
Cons: Work life balance was terrible. As a coordinator, I spent many late nights and early mornings in the office and it greatly impacted my home life, personal commitments, study, health, and mental well-being. When I raised these concerns to management, I was basically told to suck it up -- in fact, I was then given half of a second full time role to cover! 

The culture especially in assurance is very dog-eat-dog and it's largely acceptable to treat those under you like slaves. I encountered many partners and senior managers who were not interested in my thoughts or contributions to the team and wanted me to be an unquestioning, unthinking tool of the organisation. It went so far as I heard one senior manager refer to those under him and people employed in Asia as "resources" (not people) and "slave labour". This manager then had a good laugh about how easy it was to dump work on people in Asia and expect them to turn it over in very tight timeframes because they were cheap and unquestioningly dedicated.

There was a surface level company line that everyone was supported and of course you can always ask for help, but in reality, asking for help made you look weak and incapable. I was often encouraged to share how I was coping with my absurd workload only to have my comments taken out of context and then used against me later in reviews. As a result, I quickly lost my ability to trust management and my personal opinions of my coworkers suffered.

While EY touts itself as an employer of choice for women, I would have to disagree. They say they are flexible with work. They say they value work life balance and families. They say women have equal opportunities. But the number of times I attended conference calls while partners were driving and kids were screaming in the backseat were too frequent. The truth is that while yes, you can technically work part time and raise a family at EY, expectations of you don't really change. Women still have to work hard and sacrifice their families even if it's not the party line. This isn't work-life balance.

EY has an absurdly hierarchical culture where rank gives people license to make unreasonable demands on others. For example, a facilitator one rank above you in Learning and Development couldn't carry their own stationary pack to training -- a coordinator would have to come to work early and do it for them (stationary packs are A4 size bags of markers and pens). Nor could facilitators tidy up their own training rooms or return their training materials -- a coordinator would have to stay late to do this for them. On numerous other occasions I was told that no matter how reasonable my suggestions or thoughts were, it wouldn't matter as long as I was a coordinator giving the advice (said to me by management). The workplace had no spirit of collaboration. Instead, interactions were conducted in two ways: either suck up to someone higher and take their word as bible or make it someone else's problem (i.e. someone less important than you).

There were no growth opportunities for coordinators in L&D. When I interviewed, I was very clear that I would be coming to EY specifically for opportunities to learn and move into a role with more responsibility (I took a demotion and pay cut to join EY), which I was mislead to believe I would have. In reality, there is no upward mobility for coordinators in L&D. Program managers are all seconded from the service lines and even if they promote your rank, your responsibilities won't change (such was the case with one coordinator). Most coordinators burn out and leave within two years. Rank promotions are unlikely to happen any sooner than 3 years into the role and even then, you're still doing the same role. 

The role itself as an L&D coordinator was disappointing. I only ever felt challenged from a workload management perspective, other than that I was not once mentally challenged by my role. It was largely data entry work. Opportunities to up skill were available -- as a reward or a punishment. If you wanted to up skill in anyway in L&D, your options were to either stick it out until you had "proven yourself" or be placed on a performance management plan wherein your skills training was a punishment. Theoretically you could seek out your own training without either scenario, but you would be hard pressed to find time as an L&D coordinator for professional development. I can't imagine it happening without management advocating on your behalf.

In the end, I was scapegoated for a very poorly managed project and given no warning of poor performance before they decided to replace me. It was much easier to blame the lowly coordinator as unable to perform than for management to accept that they were disorganised, unprepared, making unreasonable demands, and executing poor communication. As I said earlier, coordinators are merely a step above graduates -- you will be the fall guy every time because you don't matter. 

If you are considering Ernst & Young as a potential employer, bear in mind that about 2/3 of all graduates leave the assurance line before they make it to senior manager. It will be a difficult, demanding, life stealing process to get to that level if that's what you desire. People who seem to excel at EY are those who value and are motivated by prestige, brand power, professional power, career success, and find satisfaction in working incredibly hard. There came a point when I looked around me and realised I was fundamentally different from the people in power at EY -- I don't feel proud or satisfied when I pull all-nighters; I mostly just feel tired and resentful. 

In summary, be prepared to work hard at EY. You will need a lot of grit to persevere through many years before you earn a position of any consequence, and you need to be unshakable in the face of criticism. If being yelled at by people in authority over small things affects your sense of self, then this isn't the workplace for you.