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Accenture strives to attract and retain the best people and provide an environment where they can all develop professionally and build a rewarding career.
Diversity is a major strategic business priority for Accenture and we recognise it plays a vital role in helping us to better serve our clients, improve our profitability and develop our people. We have a diverse workforce composition, with employees from ethnic minority groups representing more than 15% of the total Accenture population (a better representation than the last UK census!). In addition, in the last six years, the proportion of women within the firm has increased by more than 20%.
Our commitment to diversity comes right from the top of our global organisation. Accenture has a Chief People Officer, Pierre Nanterme - who reports directly to the Chairman and CEO, Bill Green, and is responsible for all diversity efforts within the company.
Women at Accenture
Accenture recognises that the advancement of women is critical to retain the best talent and to remain competitive. Women are also valued for offering different skills and a different perspective that our Clients are increasingly requesting. By attracting and developing women within the organisation, Accenture ensures that it has a competitive advantage both in selling Client work but also in then delivering Client requirements.
Accenture’s Global Women’s Initiative aims to help us to attract, retain and advance women by recognising, fostering and maximising their performance. The initiative offers Accenture women mentoring, networking and other opportunities to ensure that they continue to succeed and progress in their careers at Accenture.
The Global Women’s Initiative works with Accenture leaders to establish an inclusive environment to create a sense of belonging and community; ensure parity and fairness in business decisions; provide equal access to opportunities to learn, grow and advance; be an advocate for work/life balance and flexible work arrangements; provide effective mentoring and coaching; and support local women’s initiatives by attending or organising local events.
The supportive policies we have designed to help women improve their working life include a first class maternity leave policy designed to support them through maternity and encourage them to return to work. The package includes 9 months full pay and the opportunity to take a further 3 months unpaid leave.
Other policies include:
- flexible working
- parental leave
- compassionate leave
- performance management
- career counselling
- leave of absence
- mentoring for women programme
- alternative career model for executives wishing to take a lateral career move.
Attracting, recruiting and retaining the best female talent
Respect for the individual is one of the core values at Accenture. Attracting, retaining, developing and valuing female talent is a key priority for Accenture both at a UK and global level and we are constantly monitoring and improving our activities to achieve this. In the UK, we have a number of part time female senior Executives within the UK Partner Group illustrating that women are advancing within the organisation and flexible working takes place even at the highest level.
A recent survey to understand the challenges faced by women in the workplace, yielded a great response rate and some encouraging feedback. 68.7% of our women felt that they were correctly positioned for success in their current role, and significantly, when asked if they thought men were better positioned for success, there was a 50:50 split.
Accent on advancement of women
We are doing a lot of work within our Accent on Women and Parents programmes to support career development for Women at Accenture. In particular, we sponsored the development of a maternity returners programme to further support individuals throughout their maternity leave and their reintegration into the business on their return. We and have top level commitment that this is an extremely critical and beneficial programme to further enable women to continue to progress their career at Accenture.
Accent on Women Managers
As part of our commitment to attract, retain and advance the best women in the market, we have developed a Global Women-only senior programme to focus on the retention and advancement of women managers. This was the first ever course to deliver professional development training to a cross-workforce female audience throughout the UK. The course covers topics designed to increase the personal effectiveness of women at the Executive level such as career aspirations, networking, selling, Executive presence and influencing skills. The training day ends with a dinner attended by male and female senior Executives from across the workforces which provides a great opportunity for the delegates to network and for the Senior Executives to listen to the views and challenges of women in the organisation.
Senior Executive Women’s Leadership Seminar
Senior Executive Women’s Seminars are run annually, and attended by female UK and Ireland Senior Execs and the UK and Ireland Leadership Team. The provocative and thought-provoking seminars provide an opportunity to network, illustrate our commitment to women’s advancement, and enable women to be more successful at senior levels by gaining an in-depth understanding of women’s leadership styles.
Maternity Returners Programme
In 2004 we launched our Maternity Returners Programme to increase the retention of our maternity returners through a best in class maternity programme. At the time of launch, the retention rate of individuals returning from maternity leave and remaining with the company for more than 12 months was 75%, but since the launch of the programme, we have seen an increase to more than 90%.
New initiatives are constantly being created
Not only do we currently have an extensive range of policies and schemes to help women advance within Accenture, we also continue to develop and create new solutions. For example, the Global Strategy “Products Accent on Women” is an on-going initiative within the Products division whose purpose is to:
drive a step-change in the significance of Women to Accenture as an enabler to our Business Strategy
improve presence in the workforces (headcount)
support career advancement (balanced pipeline, promotions)
facilitate rise to leadership positions (professional development, representative participation)
generate positive expectations: it is worth staying in Accenture (attrition)
make Accenture an attractive company for Women (recruiting)
E-Skills UK
We are a supporter of E-Skills UK, and a member of the Women in IT Champions Group. This is a group of influential, senior individuals representing companies who employ IT professionals and are committed to increasing the number of women in IT.
