Accenture in India: Behind the global tech giant’s inclusive HR policies

The global tech giant believes in inclusiveness and investing in employees’ growth

Smita Tripathi

When 32-year-old Shoaib, who identifies as a transgender woman, lost her job as a flight attendant during the pandemic, she applied and got offers from leading banks, but they required her to change her gender identity. Shoaib’s desire to be herself resulted in her refusing all the offers. She then applied for the role of a Customer Service Associate at Accenture in India, which has an inclusive LGBTQ+ policy. “We don’t want any special treatment or behaviour. We yearn to be treated equally. That’s what helps people change the notion that we are different,” she says. “That culture of equality at Accenture makes all the difference,” says Shoaib, who joined Accenture in India’s team of more than 300,000 people in October 2020.

“We have a deep-rooted commitment to foster diversity and create an equal workplace culture. For us, Pride is about being open and committed to supporting each other in a psychologically safe environment. Our sensitisation sessions are focussed on helping our people understand the nuances of gender expression and identity. In FY22, we ran a successful internal campaign to normalise the use of inclusive pronouns for our LGBTQ+ people,” says Lakshmi C., MD and Lead of Human Resources at Accenture in India.

Accenture has a six-month-long inclusive internship programme that aims to build a skilled talent pool of transgender candidates. It is designed to help interns develop workplace skills, augment their work experience and establish professional networks for the future. “The programme allows us to assess prospective candidates and create a more diverse workforce,” says Lakshmi. It also hires LGBTQ+ talent through strategic external partnerships, Pride employment fairs and employee referrals.

Inclusivity and diversity are important for Accenture globally. It plans to achieve a gender-balanced workforce by 2025. Globally as well as in India, nearly 47 per cent of its employees are women with 26 per cent of Accenture in India’s leadership team being women, as compared to 29 per cent globally. “We continue to invest in helping our women build enduring and meaningful careers. In addition to our enabling structures such as flexible work options, gender-neutral paternal leave, benefits that enable caregiving and sensitisation training, we have also curated several learning and development programmes for our women to build deep functional, technical and leadership skills,” says Lakshmi. For instance, it launched the Vaahini Women in Leadership, a networking space for women MDs.

Accenture’s focus on providing growth and learning opportunities for its employees is one of the key reasons for it being ranked No. 2 on the BT-Taggd Best Companies to Work For in India ranking this year. Globally, in FY22, it invested $1.1 billion and 40 million hours in the training and development of its employees to make them future-ready. It employs nearly 738,000 people globally of which more than 300,000 are in India.

“Our commitment to the growth of our people is evident from the nearly 157,000 promotions at Accenture across the world in FY22,” says Lakshmi. The company has launched iAspire at Accenture’s Advanced Technology Centres in India—a platform that offers visibility to in-demand career paths so that employees can build personalised career journeys and learning paths. “This encourages our people to expand their skill profile to enable sharper matches between skills, aspirations and available opportunities,” says Lakshmi. This has helped employees like Vishwanath Kadkol, Manager, Capability Network, to make a significant career shift by moving into a business consulting role after spending nearly a decade as part of Accenture’s HR function. “I have benefitted immensely from the accelerated learning path that Accenture offered, along with the hands-on exposure of working across industry sectors,” he says.

Accenture is also evolving from being a ‘consumer of talent’ to a ‘creator of talent’. Last year, in addition to hiring engineering graduates, the company hired non-engineering graduates in India and trained them to develop into multi-stack technologists. In India, it also launched the Career Reboot 2.0 programme that helped it hire and reskill experienced women professionals who had been on a career break for two years or more.

Through its ‘Skills to Succeed’ programme, the company has skilled over 1.36 million people in India for participation in the digital economy over the last decade. “In FY22, we piloted a successful initiative to create STEM awareness among schoolgirls in grades 6, 7, and 8, so that we can inspire them to build a career in technology,” says Lakshmi.

Recognition at work is important for most employees. “We heard that being recognised and recognising others is key to their sense of belonging. Therefore, in FY22, we re-imagined our recognition programme and enabled all our 738,000+ people across the world with monetary award points, so that they can use them to recognise colleagues regularly, and in the moment,” says Lakshmi.

Layoffs have become a harsh reality in today’s world and Accenture hasn’t escaped it either. It recently laid off 19,000 employees globally. However, Lakshmi says the company will continue to hire depending on business demands. “As we continuously pivot to meet new client demands, our focus is to unlock our people’s potential and help them achieve their professional and personal aspirations,” she says.

Courtesy : Business Today

Note: This news piece was originally published in businesstoday.com and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights