How EY is working to uplift social equity through authentic storytelling

It’s time to reimagine a more equitable working world where everyone — particularly those facing barriers and disadvantages — can thrive.

Social equity impacts all of us — and all of us can make an impact. Based on our backgrounds and identities, we’re all part of different social groups. The groups we find ourselves in can mean deep-rooted advantage, or disadvantage, in terms of access to resources and opportunities — and gaps in how we’re perceived and evaluated.

According to the UN, 71% of the world’s population lives in countries where inequality has grown. And inequalities between social groups, including those based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion and disability, are pervasive in developed and developing countries alike.

Addressing those underlying inequities requires paying closer attention, ongoing learning, and recognizing and addressing barriers with consistency and focus.

Inequities can be rooted in societal, structural, and situational dynamics, which can all carry impact in workplaces and societies and make people feel more like “outsiders” versus “insiders” at work.

For example, in some societies, people of certain backgrounds or identities may be at greater risk of discrimination, based on historically rooted dynamics. Structures that define how we live, work and operate within these societies might reinforce these dynamics, making access to opportunities uneven. And situationally through everyday interactions, these dynamics may be even further repeated or reinforced.

In our organizations, we can work to disrupt these dynamics through how we team and lead, the cultures we create, how we assign and value work, how we evaluate performance, and make advancement and appointment decisions. We have an opportunity to listen to our people’s experiences to better recognize how inequities are replicated and reinforced in often unnoticed ways.

Why action is needed now

Around the world, we’re seeing heightened social and political tensions and significant disruption. There’s also an increasing sense of polarization that’s making people feel more like outsiders.

According to the EY Belonging Barometer survey of more than 5,000 employed adults from organizations across the globe, more people feel lonely and lack a sense of belonging, which is impacting physical and mental wellbeing. Among the groups feeling most impacted are those with disabilities and the LGBT+ community — further compounding the effect of existing inequities.

Previous EY research (via EY.com US) has shown that more than one-third of workers feel the greatest sense of belonging at work, second only to home. This emphasizes the opportunity organizations have to build environments that are inclusive and equitable, given the important role they play in people’s lives.

What’s encouraging is that, over the last few years, more conversations are happening on the topic of social equity. It’s a growing expectation among employees, and companies are paying closer attention to address potential inequities — for example, applying an equity lens to processes such as pay and promotions.

Today, there’s opportunity for all of us — individuals and businesses alike — to do more to address discrimination, bias and racism directly, to help build a better working world.

What we’ve learned — the power of storytelling

Social equity is about clearing obstacles, building more inclusive environments and enabling access to resources and opportunities so everyone can thrive.

Building more awareness of inequities has been one important step forward for us at EY. And we’ve learned that storytelling is a powerful way to reach our people and inspire deeper conversations that truly drive change. Stanford research shows that stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone. Recently, we learned about the lived experiences of EY people, in their own words, through our global storytelling campaign, Uplift.

The films shared the barriers faced by these colleagues. These range from experiences in social settings and interactions at work, to the impact of being regarded — or disregarded — based on aspects of their backgrounds and identities. The stories may resonate with many of us or open our eyes to barriers we might otherwise be unaware of.

Watch the storytelling videos.

The Uplift campaign was launched by our global CEO on a webcast to all EY people. Through a survey following, 90% agreed it was “inspiring” to hear EY’s commitment to social equity. The storytelling campaign has been meaningful to us internally, sparking reflections, insights and conversations. The stories have helped us to better engage with one another as a community, building greater connections and understanding. Now, we’re sharing them beyond EY in hopes of sparking conversations on a greater scale.

We’ve seen how enhanced DE&I efforts have strengthened our business and created more exceptional career experiences for our people. While we’re proud of our progress, we acknowledge there are still differences in how people of different backgrounds and identities experience EY, and we will keep working to recognize and address barriers. Our journey continues and we hold ourselves accountable to progress.

How can we bring more people in, so no one is left out?

At EY, we’ve brought together — not just our people at all levels — but all areas of the business to bring more points of view and potential solutions to the table. For example in Consulting, our EY Global Vice Chair Errol Gardner said, “our teams are transforming businesses through the power of people. There’s no reason we can’t apply this same methodology to social issues. We know we can build a better world by uplifting social equity — both within our walls and beyond.”

There’s a role for everyone in creating a more equitable world. By creating space for greater awareness, understanding, and accountability we believe all organizations can more effectively connect people, bridge their experiences, and have a positive impact on our societies. Together, we can drive change on a much larger scale through conversations and collaborative solutions and actions.

We hope to spark more conversations by sharing our powerful Uplift campaign films externally to ignite curiosity across our differences, inspire personal learning and even more individual action. We know that better understanding enables better connections, which ultimately enables more inclusive environments where more voices can be heard and valued, and people feel free to be themselves.