By Edd K. Usman
Embracing the labor concept of ?equal opportunity employer?, outsourcing titan Accenture said it is ready to take in any person who wants to work for the company as long as he or she possesses one trait: talent.
The US-headquartered firm stressed in a recent press briefing that it doesn?t matter if one belongs to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community, or is PWD (person with disability), or comes from an ethnic group.
They may call Accenture home because the company embraces everyone, according to Jesper Madsen, Accenture human resources managing director for Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Philippines.
Madsen, along with some other Accenture executives, met journalists recently in Mandaluyong City to discuss how deep the company has embraced inclusiveness in its employment policy and how they are future-proofing their employees.
?For us inclusion and diversity are absolutely vital. We look at it four different ways: one part is gender diversity, LGBT is the second part, third is people with disability (PWD), and fourth is ethnicity,? he said.
Accenture, which has been operating in the Philippines for over 30 years, has around 45,000 employees in the country. They are deployed in delivery services centers in Manila (18 facilities), Cebu (four facilities), and Ilocos Norte, which opened in March this year.
Madsen pointed out that gender diversity has acquired greater significance and importance as of late.
?I think it is absolutely vital to generate an environment that really fosters getting the best out of people, enable people to achieve performance, and really help them develop as individuals as well,? he emphasized.
He noted that in the digital age, people will be the most important asset. “So we need to create that kind of inclusion, a diverse environment that will really help us,” Madsen said.
Madsen said talent comes from various people from different parts of the world. “We have people who are black, we have people who are white, we have people with one sort of religion, we have people with non-religion, we have people from Asia, Africa, Europe, around the world.
“We have people who have, you know, different kinds of sexual orientation, we have people who happened to have a disability, we have people who have no disability. It is all about talent, and talent comes in many different ways,” he said.
In his presentation, Madsen related how his company provides many kinds of opportunities for its people, helping them maximize their potential, which is vital for them to keep abreast and cope with challenges of the modern workplace.
The digital revolution is now in full swing, he said, citing as signs the presence of digitally enabled services, such as interactive, mobile, cloud, security, analytics, artificial intelligence, agile, automation, devops, and lightweight architecture.
Madsen said Accenture sees the digitally driven environment as opening the doors for career opportunities for their people and equip them with new ways to do high-value work for the company’s clients across the world.
Thus, the company is helping its employees develop multi-skills and be as relevant and competitive in today’s digital world.
“We provide our employees with a combination of classroom-based training and digital technology and collaboration tools, such as myLearning Mobile Interface, Accenture Learning Boards, and Accenture Connected Learning Classroom,” he said.
From September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015, Accenture poured in $841 million which translated into 15 million hours of training, giving each employee an average of 40 hours, according to Madsen.
The company also invested over $5 million on learning, delivering more than 1.9 million training hours to its employees in the Philippines.
These investments have resulted in making Accenture as the third most aspired company Filipinos would like to work for 2015 and 2016, according to JobStreet.com Philippines.
