Inside EY’s $22 Million Strategy to Get Workers Back Into the Office | Human Resource Executive

Many organizations continue to refine their return to office plans while considering insights from various data sources. For example, some sources mention how an impending recession could shift the balance of power back to organizations—where there is a more significant push for a full return to the office. Other sources suggest that new COVID variants will fuel fully remote work this fall. As organizational leaders consider various sources of information in their decision-making, it is always interesting to learn from “actual practices” organizations are implementing to support their return to office strategies. This article shares how Ernst & Young (EY) invested 22M to support an “EY way of working transition fund” that would help workers overcome some obstacles to returning to the office. The basis for this initiative was a survey that found, “while many of EY’s workers wanted to be in the office part-time—say, a couple of times a week—the company wasn’t seeing that desire reflected in the number of workers actually showing up in the office….Employees weren’t sure what to do about childcare or pet care. Others were reluctant to commute to their offices—they were worried about soaring gas prices as a result of inflation or didn’t want to use public transportation to get to the office during a pandemic. To help its employees, EY’s implemented a fund that would cover all commuting costs, all dependent care costs, and all pet care costs for its 55,000-plus U.S. employees. The benefit has been used so far by a 29,500 EY employees, and reimbursements totaled $22 million to date.