I recently sat down with Bryan Parsons, Manager in the Asset Management Practice at Ernst & Young LLP and a Co-Founder of Ernst & Young’s LGBTA (LGBT and Allies!) employee group, Beyond, to discuss the group’s formation and role in the company. With over 1,400 members, Beyond has been instrumental in Ernst & Young being the first of the Big Four professional services firms to receive a 100% rating on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, receiving HRC’s Corporate Equality Award in February 2008, and being named a Top 10 company for LGBT employees by DiversityInc.
Ernst & Young worked with FH Out Front for their Making it Real campaign and we since have handled media relations for them around several events, including this year’s Pride kick-off event with Christine Quinn, openly gay speaker of the New York City Council.
The Making it Real campaign, our first campaign with Ernst & Young, has been one of the most rewarding campaigns that I have worked on. EY held a roundtable with leading companies including Citigroup, Viacom, and JPMorgan Chase to discuss best practices for an LGBT inclusive workplace. The findings resulted in feature stories in The Advocate, The New York Blade, Associated Press, and a two page photo of Beyond members in Fortune’s article on being openly gay in the workplace. It’s events like this that I feel separate Ernst & Young from the rest of Corporate America. Rather than just having policies on the books and an inclusive environment within EY’s walls, they aim to spread their message of inclusiveness to the broader business community- helping not only EY employees, but all employees.
Bryan Parsons was one of the founding members of Beyond and is currently on the steering committee. He manages EY’s relationship with HRC and also moderates training sessions for EY employees. Outside of EY, Bryan is on the HRC Business Council, which is responsible for the design and implementation of the Corporate Equality Index and most recently, he was asked to serve as co-chair for HRC’s 2009 Gala Dinner. I also spotted him holding the HRC flag in this year’s (very rainy) NYC Pride Parade.
1. How did Beyond begin? How did you position the group to launch it as a firmwide affinity group?
Beyond was officially recognized in November 2003 as part of E&Y’s culture of inclusiveness for all its people. At first Beyond was an informal grassroots network of people connecting – both electronically and at firm events. The group reached out to John Ferraro, Executive Sponsor of Gender and Ethnicity who was doing great inclusiveness work for both of these diversity initiatives. We knew that having an executive sponsor supporting Beyond would take our group to the next level. John was immediately supportive – and remains a strong ally today.
When employees can’t bring their whole selves to work and are spending time hiding information, they’re not putting all of their effort into their work and to our clients. We feel that promoting an open and inclusive environment was not only beneficial to ourselves and our LGBT colleagues, but to the firm as a whole. Our firm also has a strong belief that a diverse workforce that feels comfortable sharing their opinions leads to better solutions for our clients.
2. I was able to attend Ernst & Young’s Pride Month kick-off event where Christine Quinn, Speaker of NYC Council, spoke at Ernst & Young’s Times Square office. What other activities did Ernst & Young plan for Pride month?
Beyond has satellite groups in over 60 offices and many of them are highly involved with local Pride celebrations. Our DC group had a booth at Capitol Pride. In Pittsburgh they viewed and discussed a movie involving members of the Pittsburgh GLBT Corporate Roundtable (other companies in Pittsburgh on interested in creating LGBT inclusive workplaces) and also marched in the Pittsburgh Pride Parade.
In New York, we also held a roundtable with executive women to discuss why there are not more out and visible lesbians women in business. We had a great response to the roundtable and other participants included Showtime and Johnson & Johnson. All told, just about every office with a group did something with activities ranging from providing snacks and posters to more formal speaker events.
We also had an issue of The Daily Connection- our internal firmwide newsletter – that focused on pride and included a Q&A with Chris Crespo, our LGBT Inclusiveness Strategy Leader at Ernst & Young, on its significance.
3. During the Pride kickoff event, Christine Quinn mentioned that Corporate America’s support of the LGBT community is needed to secure government support of our community. How are programs in Corporate America like EY’s Beyond important to advancing our community?
The government looks to businesses to see what kind of positive impact LGBT inclusiveness has had on our microcosm. When you have straight Americans working
alongside out and proud LGBT employees, that can change hearts and minds, and make for a more educated America.
Companies are autonomous and are not seeking to change laws, rather they do what makes the most sense for their employees, suppliers, and clients. For us, having a workforce that feels comfortable and included positively impacts our bottom line and delivers better results for clients.
4. What types of training sessions does Ernst & Young offer? How about benefits for LGBT employees – will the CA marriage ruling impact that?
We have an introductory LGBT training for allies that educates our colleagues on inclusive language and the business case for LGBT inclusion.. We also give perspective to what they can do as allies. This is a voluntary course that will expand over the coming years. Right now, LGBT issues are also included in our mandatory firm-wide diversity training.
We offer full domestic partner benefits and transgender benefits—this is just part of why we have received a 100% rating on the HRC Corporate Equality Index three years in a row.
Now that some of these relationships will be deemed “marriages,” companies are going to have to edit forms and systems and increase resources for interpreting court and legal decisions. Companies are also going to have to develop a fair and equal process to address the disparity between states in recognizing these unions. Standards will have to be made early on so that companies aren’t seen as “interpreting relationships.” Also, it will be interesting to see how decisions made in November will impact Corporate America.
5. Working in a supportive and open environment is a great benefit to LGBT employees, but what is the benefit to Ernst & Young? How does the firm’s inclusive environment help with recruiting and retention?
Out Americans and straight allies today seek out and expect an inclusive environment. In the past few years, LGBT inclusion has gone from a benefit to a must have, especially for the Gen X and Gen Y’ers. Many straight college graduates are interested in our diversity programs overall—they’ve gone to school with a diverse group of students and they expect to start their careers with a similar mix.
Beyond appears at LGBT recruiting events throughout the year including Reaching Out MBA, local Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce fairs, Southern Comfort (for transgender employees), and HRC dinners. EY’s People First Culture helps attract and retain the best people, leverage diversity of thoughts, and helps the firm grow to meet clients’ needs.
7. What has been your "proudest moment" as a member of Ernst & Young Beyond?
I was teaching a course at an Intern Leadership Conference a few years back in Florida and mentioned my involvement in Beyond. Two years later, one of the members of Beyond told me that he was at that session of the conference. While at the time he didn’t have the courage to say anything, he told me later that he was “ecstatic” to see an openly gay person in a leadership role at EY. Ultimately, this is when he decided that Ernst & Young was the place for him and he’s now an active member of Beyond.
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