EY is urging its junior staff to get back into the office more often to sharpen the softer skills that industry executives believe will become increasingly important as the use of artificial intelligence grows.
The Big Four firm has not made any formal changes to its working from home policy, but confirmed that partners are reminding younger consultants about “the importance of meaningful time spent together” in the office for their personal development.
The consensus in the industry is that interpersonal skills are becoming a key part of the job, with AI equalising the technical work and data that firms can produce. Senior partners believe that how staff present that work and interact with clients will determine which firms win new business, and argue that those skills are best learnt in person from more experienced colleagues.
“This change we’ve seen in the last few years where people have set up their lives to be … at home a lot is just not the route to success in the world of AI,” Sayeh Ghanbari, EY’s UK head of consulting, told the FT.
She added that, with AI increasingly doing more of the routine work, human consultants will “have to be good at what we’re really good at, which is to be human. To build a career in consulting and develop all of those human skills … you cannot do that through so much remote work”.
Support authors and subscribe to content
This is premium stuff. Subscribe to read the entire article.
