Strong Relational Capabilities

In one definition of relational capabilities, part of what creates strong relational capabilities is one’s ‘network openness’, or the willingness to collaborate (Schillebeeckx et al., 2015). EY proves this to be true beyond just it’s ground- level employees. EY places great importance on mentorship and coaching initiatives at the firm (EY, 2018). At EY not only are employees provided the opportunity to speak and meet with senior management from many different departments, part of the working expectation at EY is that more senior staff will demonstrate a willingness to mentor junior staff (EY, 2018). This can reduce the chances of negative power-dynamics at the workplace, as well as provide a greater sense of teamwork for employees of all levels,

EY has created a solid working foundation through the empirically sound initiatives listed and described above. With this strong foundation, EY has been able to take their desire to foster high-quality employee relationships and small teams further through the creation of a ‘team-building app’. The app uses employee information to understand the team members in any given work group. By demonstrating their skill sets, their strengths, their weaknesses, and track records, the app

When speaking to one of Toronto’s EY employees directly, it was made clear that EY not only wants to be profitable in their means of business, namely accounting, but they also want to be industry leaders in team-building and team-work (EY, 2018). The profitability or efficiency of a group’s outcome will largely depend on its member’s ability to work together to achieve the common goal. This is not the same as being friends or necessarily liking all members of your team or group, but it will require the ability to put individual differences aide, offer respect to group members, as well as maintain a sense of openness to give and receive constructive feedback. With the emphasis EY puts on team projects, they have also done the appropriate research into how to produce this sort of working environment. As making the decision to focus on teamwork environments comes with the responsibility of creating an organization with strong relational capabilities. People want to work at EY (see awards), the employee we spoke to spoke highly on his abilities to work well with his co-workers. The initiatives set in place at EY are examples of a company making a decision for how it would like it’s organization to run, and the values they place the most emphasis on. And then actually taking the time and effort to ensure that the initiatives that are introduced in the organization are in align with