Big Four firm EY has announced plans to launch "Day One Ready," a new program to better prepare accounting students with real-world business courses and internship opportunities.
Building off a pilot curriculum with the University of Dayton in Ohio, Day One Ready seeks to lay a tech-focused groundwork for future professionals.
“Our approach to staying ahead of disruption will create jobs for people in many ways,” stated Martin Fiore, partner at EY and EY Americas tax talent leader. “We are driving the development of the right skills for those jobs by working collaboratively with academic institutions and modifying learning at all ages and levels to develop a total workforce with the needed capabilities for the future.”
The program's curriculum will offer seven courses to associated universities: Lean Six Sigma; Robotics Process Automation; Excel Power Modeling; Data Analytics and Visualization; Autonomous Systems; Coding; and Mindfulness. The courses will be taught by university faculty members, EY trainers and guest lecturers.
EY also announced plans to hire more students with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) backgrounds, and to put an emphasis on training current staff members in future-forward concepts.
“The future will be governed by predictive analytics, algorithms and artificial intelligence," added Fiore. "Our strategy is to shift the workforce, adjust hiring and evolve learning programs with technology-enabled processes, chatbots and critical thinking. Our curriculum is far from static and will gradually include more advanced learning that helps our people to understand, use and innovate our services with each generation of digital disruptors. We will continue to have new and exciting job opportunities and are willing to help develop people to bring the right skills.”
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