Annual report for the fiscal year from 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012

38
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Workplace
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56 nationalities
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Ernst & Young is a cosmopolitan
employer. In Switzerland, our
employees hail from 56 different
countries.
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22 percent
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The level of women in
executive roles.
Overall, our workforce is
40.7 percent female.
process. We use a management-by-objectives procedure
for such checks, with the aim of integrating each employee
into our operations in a way that suits their performance
and promotes their development. This allows us to assess
performance, create individual goal plans and set targets
for personal development.
A high-quality goal-setting process
These feedback talks are compulsory for all Ernst & Young
employees, across all functions and organizational levels.
The assessment is included as a factor determining the
variable salary components of managerial employees and
client-facing staff. The quality of the goal-setting process
is thus extremely important. We invest a lot of time in training
counselors, i.e., employees’ superiors, on topics such
as objective-setting, assessment and the appropriate way
to conduct discussions. Assessments are not based on a
single vote. We hold roundtable meetings during the evaluation
process with everyone who has worked with the
employee as their superior. This ensures that all of the relevant
information is adequately considered. The process
focuses on quality of work as well as on values, leadership
skills, communication, project management and quantitative
indicators. Examples include the number of hours
billed and the complexity of the engagements.
Support from coaches and mentors
At Ernst & Young, professional support is always available
for our employees. Coaching is an important part of our
corporate culture and a climate that fosters employee
development as an ongoing process. In addition to informal
on-the-job coaching, we offer project feedback and
regular performance reviews according to pre-defined criteria.
We also run a mentoring program for our employees
to aid their professional and career-focused development
alongside the personal aspects.
This formal process of cultivating the potential of our people
is complemented by various informal management and
development activities throughout the year that serve to
strengthen important leadership skills. Project managers
communicate their expectations clearly, giving timely and
specific feedback and taking advantage of opportunities as
they arise to coach their team members in just the right way.
Ernst & Young also offers all employees numerous
additional benefits. Besides maternity leave, retirement
and disability insurance and the pension fund, certain
employee groups also receive a variable salary component
determined by individual performance and the company’s
overall success.
Expanding knowledge – our top priority
Having highly qualified employees is absolutely essential
for an advisory firm like Ernst & Young. Their knowledge
and capacity for innovation are the benefits we provide to
our clients day in and day out. Knowledge is the decisive
factor for success in everything we do. Specialized education
and further training and personal development are
therefore an absolute priority for us. Our understanding of
what it means to be well qualified is broad. Beyond formally
demonstrated expertise such as diplomas, university
degrees and certification, we also look at training courses
and activities that further the development of each employee’s
personality. Indeed, training courses and further education
programs are essential components of the career
development path at Ernst & Young. They are included
in annual planning as a major topic. Moreover, there are
guidelines defining the qualifications required for certain
kinds of work, e.g., signature rights for an audit report;
only those who have passed the exam qualifying them as
a Swiss Certified Accountant may sign the audit report.
We offer a broad spectrum of relevant internal and external
educational opportunities and provide our employees
with generous and targeted support in this area. For our core
business, our greatest need – and our great asset – are
people with formal certification, so we heavily promote
educational programs qualifying our employees as certified
accountants, training them as tax consultants, or leading
to bachelor’s or master’s degrees and CFA or CISA certification.
The EYU program − “Ernst & Young and You” − is
our global learning and development framework. Its goal
is to link personal development to the acquisition of skills
needed on the job. Over 10,000 courses are currently available,
many of which are web-based. These educational
opportunities are both subject-specific and relevant for
understanding the firm and its operations as a whole.
Ernst & Young’s approach to training and education is
clearly defined in our Global Continuous Education Policy.
The framework requires all client-facing employees to accumulate
at least 120 CE (continuous education) credit
hours every three years, with at least 20 of those being
Annual report 2012