Case Study: Ernst & Young
Video Arts in conversation with Andreas Billand, Executive Director, Transaction Advisory Services.
Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance,
tax, transaction and advisory services. The
company aims to have a positive impact on
markets by assembling multi-disciplinary
teams for businesses, drawing on a global
network of 141,000 people.
“…we wanted to give the programme
an edge that would appeal to today’s
Generation Y employees. Video helps
because it’s an engaging medium and
something that our target audience
are used to consuming all the time.”
Ernst & Young: more engaging and effective training with video
You’ve recently launched a global
training programme for all of your
graduate employees. Tell us a little
bit about that.
standard training programmes. Video
helps because it’s an engaging medium
and something that our target audience
are used to consuming all the time.
We want to develop people to, not just
provide technical services, but become
business advisers to our clients. This
programme will help us to create a new
generation of more rounded professionals
who can work across our different
Transaction Advisory Services offerings.
Also, it’s entertaining. We were aware that
we were dealing with a younger group
of employees and we tried to cater for
their needs.
It’s aimed at enhancing the business
capabilities of our junior advisors and
getting them out their traditional silos and
interacting across the different interaction
business lines.
Delivered over the first three years of
their career, the programme we’ve
developed features a mixture of
classroom training and online study,
based on case studies and simulations.
About the Video Arts Digital Library
And you chose to use video to deliver
the behavioural elements of the
training?
Yes, we wanted to give the programme
an edge that would appeal to today’s
Generation Y employees and make it
more memorable and effective than other
This is obviously a
long-term change
programme but
what’s the initial
feedback?
So you approached Video Arts?
Yes. We thought Video Arts would give us
the opportunity to give the training a
different spin and make it different to
everything Ernst & Young had done in the
past. It gave the training an edge and
added a different perspective. We looked
at the Video Arts website and after
weighing up the different options we
decided to use their Digital Library
product. It lets us deliver training that is
bite-size, visual and entertaining. And it
gives us the flexibility to stream video
anywhere in the world, at any time: and as
many times as we wanted.
What video resources are you using?
The Digital Library let’s trainers,
managers and learners tap into the
largest library of video learning in the
world, online or via download.
and India. That gave us a pool of 100
trainers who could deliver the programme
to cohorts of 30 junior advisors at a time
through Ernst & Young’s regional training
hubs in Europe (London, Frankfurt, Prague
and Amsterdam), the Americas and the
Asia-Pacific region.
We chose FISH! to begin with as it’s an
entertaining film that offers a fresh
perspective. It gives our programme a new
dimension. The videos are really different.
They’re quite funny which makes it easier
to absorb the messages and they were
interesting food for thought for our
participants.
And you’re deploying this on a pretty
big scale?
Yes. We started with train the trainer
sessions across Europe, Australia, the US
FISH! is a very powerful film. The four key
messages ‘Be There’, ‘Make Their Day’,
‘Play’ and ‘Choose Your Attitude’ transcend
cultures: everyone ‘gets it’ The feedback
we’ve had so far has been really positive.
What is FISH!?
FISH! is the world’s best-selling training
film. Exclusively distributed in the UK
by Video Arts, it shows how the
fishmongers at Pike Place Fish Market
in Seattle bring energy, commitment
and fun to their work. The film has
been translated into 17 languages and is
an established resource for motivation
and engagement training.
Speak to Video Arts about
a free Digital Library trial
T: 0845 601 2531
E: info@videoarts.co.uk
W: www.videoarts.com