Ginnie Carlier joined professional services network EY in an accounting role 32 years ago—and her career has changed just as much as the organization has in the last three decades.
“Compared to 30 years ago, we compete in very different markets; we’re a multi-disciplinary firm now, we operate in new countries, the types of organizations we support are different,” she says. “The service offerings today probably weren’t even envisioned 30 years ago.”
As the organization evolved, so has Carlier’s work: She served as the first diversity and inclusiveness leader in the Middle East and North Africa, moved into talent leadership and became the vice chair of talent for the Americas in 2021, now leading talent initiatives for almost 95,000 employees across more than 30 countries.
Core to that role has been a significant focus on employee wellbeing. Particularly in the wake of the pandemic, Carlier says, EY has doubled down in this area—including hiring a chief wellbeing officer, leaning into personalized benefits and creating strategies to measure employee wellbeing.
“We can’t afford to take our eye off the ball on wellbeing,” she says. “It always needs to be at the center.”
Carlier recently spoke with HR Executive about the evolution of employee wellbeing and other talent strategies during her three decades with EY.
Carlier: The pandemic helped corporate America demystify mental health. I certainly think that helped companies be more comfortable looking at how they can invest in benefits around mental health. Even before that, organizations had been starting to look at the importance of investing in employees holistically—physical health, emotional, financial stability. And society was starting to play a significant part in impacting how people show up every day.
The pandemic opened up all kinds of ideas on how we work, and we wanted to make sure our strategy was centered in wellbeing. Three years ago, I got into this role and I invested in hiring a chief wellbeing officer, with the idea that he and his team will drive our wellbeing philosophy at EY. Just look at the fact that the market is employing five different generations, all with different needs. How do you personalize those needs? Personalized benefits. Then, if we really ask our leaders to enable their teams to invest in wellbeing, we have to help them operationalize that and have a way to monitor, take actions and provide insights about where we need to lean in and help their teams.
HR Executive: How has EY been most innovative in addressing employee wellbeing?
Carlier: I encouraged the review of our benefits on a much more regular basis than historically had been done, to make sure we could embrace that personalization. We have a $1,000 wellbeing fund that employees can take advantage of on an annual basis. For the longest time, it was focused on gym memberships and gym equipment, but we have realized wellbeing is different for every person, so now we enable people to use it for mattresses, gaming consoles—an array of things that help alleviate stress. We have also invested through our EY Assist Program, where we offer 25 counseling or mental health sessions to our employees and every member of their household annually. One of the things I’m most excited about is the Vitality Index. Our leaders want to be able to understand where our teams are, from a wellbeing perspective, so we’re looking at how to measure that through experiential data and operational data.
What is great about this is that it helps leaders understand the peaks and valleys in terms of wellbeing and what we can do to get ahead of it. And it provides insights and actions leaders can take to help improve wellbeing. Wellbeing is not just about benefits only, not just about programs only. We need to also be looking at how we measure it and understand how we can take action when needed.
HR Executive: What sparked your interest in moving to the HR side of the organization?
Carlier: When I started, we probably were hiring 90% accounting-degree individuals—today, that’s probably about 50%. The other 50% ranges from different types of business degrees to engineers to creatives to technologists, futurists. The type of professionals we’re hiring is vastly different. I started to see that happening and started to see the interlock between the business and HR—and how important that was. That was probably 17 years ago, and that’s when I developed a real interest in how talent and HR impact the success of the business. I started having more interest in, what can I do to impact the business in a positive way through the lens of HR and talent?
HR Executive: You’ve lived and worked around the world during your time at EY. How has that shaped your approach to HR leadership?
Carlier: By living overseas, it was really my first true integration and exposure to the importance of embracing differences in culture, backgrounds, perspectives. And how, if you can harness all that, people can really feel they belong and can bring their authentic selves to work. We’ve talked a lot about diversity and inclusion, and when I was working overseas I was living it. I was very fortunate to be asked to be the first diversity and inclusiveness leader in the Middle East. Being able to bring all of those different nationalities, cultures, backgrounds together was really insightful and catapulted my point of view around that connection of talent and market success.
HR Executive: What would you count among your most significant contributions to EY’s HR function throughout your career?
Carlier: I came into the organization as an accounting major and started my career as an auditor. I was very fortunate because early on, I had a mentor who really embraced the growth mindset concept. We talk about that a lot today, with all the change in the world, but he was already embracing it then. I remember him saying, “Ginnie, go a step further. You need to think about embracing an adventurous mindset, not being afraid to say yes to opportunities. With every opportunity you have, you can step back and think about how that experience enriched your career and how you had an impact.”
Because I had that mindset, I didn’t say no [to new opportunities]. I always embraced whatever was proposed or asked of me. And as a result, I was able to be on the ground as one of the first employees who helped build out our internal audit services, now known as our risk consulting practice, which is global now. I was able to be the first DEI leader in the Middle East. And to bring basic policies and procedures and ways of working that were really driven from a mindset of diversity and inclusion, recognizing how important belonging is to the business.
I worked with our engagement teams in the field to recognize what motivated them, and I pushed to have more agile promotions, in terms of how people move in their careers—based on when they’re ready and what the business needs, versus time or grade. As the talent leader, one of my priorities was making wellbeing a business imperative to the organization, making sure we tie in our investment in wellbeing to business outcomes—not just retention or engagement but also accountability and team performance.
When I look back on my career, there are some pivotal points, and I feel pride that I drove those.
HR Executive: Beyond employee wellbeing, what do you see as another opportunity for HR leaders to become even more integral strategic business partners in 2025?
Carlier: We’re going to need to be at the forefront of L&D strategy. I also think there’s an opportunity for HR and talent professionals to really help their organizations think differently about their hiring practices. I often say we need to move from perfection of the resume to potential of the person. How can we help them invest in their personal growth and development and give them the tools and resources they need to take their skills to the level of someone who came in at a presumed higher skill level?
HR and talent leaders are also going to need to help their organizations think differently about the talent pools they tap into. One of the things we’re working on at EY is looking at the talent pools we need to tap for the future. There are big questions a lot of us are asking but HR professionals have a big part to play in deciding what are the future jobs we need to be hiring for, where we need to be investing in skilling our talent. I don’t have the exact answer today but these are the questions we’re going to have to answer in the very near future.
HR Executive: Who or what has had the most impact on how you think about HR’s role within an organization?
Carlier: I’ll tell you the moment I knew that this is where I felt I could make the biggest contribution to EY, where I was inspired by where I felt the function of HR was going to go. When I was promoted to partner, I was interacting with our vice chair of talent at the time—this was 18 years ago—and listening to how he approached his role. He said, “I wake up and think about 35,000 people every morning, and how I can help them develop and become leaders in the future, whether at EY or outside.” Now, that number is 98,000.
I need to do this not through just programs and compensation and developing good L&D strategy, but I also need to make sure I understand where the business is going. It was in that moment I was inspired to be a talent leader who really understands the market, the business, talent and HR.
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