50
ERNST & YOUNG’S
INCLUSIVE GLBT NETWORK
No. 24 Top 50 Companies for Diversity
No. 6 Top 10 Companies for GLBT Employees
Business Type: Financial Services
Corporate Headquarters: New York, N.Y.
Number of U.S. Employees: 22,707
Annual Worldwide Revenues: $16.9 billion
Ernst & Young’s employee-network groups, particularly
the bEYond Network, are successful because of strong
executive leadership from people such as John Ferraro,
the vice chair of markets, who oversees inclusiveness programs. “He has made this real for people,” says Chris
Crespo, American LGBT inclusiveness strategy leader.
James S. Turley
Chairman and CEO
Leslie D. Jones
Americas Director of Diversity
Strategy and Development
“When people ask why we do what
we do, he gives them a tactical
answer. He turns around and asks
them, ‘What if it was your kid that
was gay or lesbian? Would you
want them to have a fair shake?’
And that sums it all up.”
The bEYond Network is about
getting employees who are part of
the GLBT community “to feel connected in a way that they feel a sense
of closeness to the company. You get
this by building good peer relationships, and this promotes inclusiveness,” says Crespo. “We did not
highlight a lot of what we were doing
until 2003–2004. Now we are really
stepping up our efforts to build
awareness … It’s a work in progress;
spousal equivalency has come over
time but we have more work to do.”
The network reaches its members
through frequent mailings to nearly
400 registrants on its ever-expanding
mailing list. Because members are
scattered across the United States,
many meetings are held through
teleconferencing and smaller region-
al gatherings. Most importantly, the
network is not limited to the GLBT
population. The group provides
information that helps families with
gay and lesbian members.
The network also has had an
impact on the company in terms of
recruitment. “After receiving a 100
percent rating on the [Human
Rights Campaign, Corporate
Equality Index] last year, I began to
get hundreds of e-mails asking if it
was true. But I also got e-mails from
people telling us that the rating and
what the company does for this
community helped them make
career decisions,” Crespo says.
The bEYond Network began
when a handful of people wondered what the company had to
offer gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender (GLBT) employees. It
became an official group in 2004.
“Inclusiveness is not something
we just started; it is a journey, and
we’re constantly trying to do right
by our people,” says Crespo.
