Administrative and workplace services (AWS) is one of EY Ireland’s five support functions. Along with the four other support functions – finance, talent, markets and legal – we are part of core business services, and operate under the stewardship of our COO Sarah Connellan, who I report into. Core business services is, in turn, responsible for supporting our four client-facing businesses: audit, tax and law, consulting and strategy and transactions.
As head of AWS, I am responsible for real estate, facilities management, IT business enablement, in-house creative design, operations and administration services. There are just over 100 people in AWS across these departments, and we are seen as the engine room of the firm.
Our goal will be to ensure we continue to act in an agile way
Since the pandemic, my priorities have been to pivot EY’s six offices on the island of Ireland towards a hybrid working environment. Key to this is ensuring that when our people visit an EY office they have the best facilities and technologies to enable their day. I have achieved this by leading out on a full office refurbishment programme, introducing a suite of collaborative working spaces and Modern Meeting technology. Additionally, AWS led on the transformation of out-support services for the home-working environment, from ergonomics to furniture and IT provision.
Looking to the second half of the year, our goal will be to ensure we continue to act in an agile way. We want to ensure we are offering the best support to our people, as internal clients, and thereby empower our client-facing people to support our clients in a brilliant way.
Among the firms we advise, I can see a strong appetite to understand how organisations can make their offices work for them in the new post-Covid/hybrid working world. From the public sector to the private sector, we are all on the same journey. As EY has been through it too, we are well positioned to support and advise.
I’d like this year, overall, to be one of continuing to grow out my excellent team. This allows me time to focus on the strategic nature of the support we offer to our business, while also finding time for ‘extracurricular’ activities, such as being part of ACCA on a voluntary basis, which I really enjoy.
The most important business lesson I have learned in my career is to listen, and to listen to everyone equally: the people I report to and the people I lead. Once you listen carefully, the path ahead becomes clearer, and then you should not be afraid to make a decision and back it. We can all make mistakes, but procrastination is a bigger enemy.
