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Insight

Published December 2008

Accenture: When Product Equals People, Knowledge Is Key

 

  Kellye Whitney

As a professional services firm with more than 180,000 employees globally, Accenture collaborates and shares ideas with clients. As chief human resources officer, Jill Smart is responsible for talent management for the entire firm. Her close-to-the-action position offers access to the best and the worst in other organizations' HR processes, and she said the learning never stops.

TM: What is Accenture's approach to talent management?

Smart: We sell the knowledge capital that our people have, so management of that talent is really management of our product. Product development for us is about developing our people, building their skills and the unique and innovative aspects of their knowledge capital. Those components, in addition to career management, traditional training and succession planning, would be how we define talent management.

TM: What processes or programs have you established to improve workforce performance?

Smart: We call it "capability development" because it isn't just traditional learning. There's four components: You have training and development with an extensive curriculum. Our people get training around their function, leadership training no matter what level they are, industry training and company training around our values. The second piece is our tools and methodologies. We deliver across borders. Having a common methodology, tools and other assets ensures we can do that.

The third piece is around the supply chain. We're very purposeful in how we put our people with clients so we can grow people and they can deliver better. The fourth piece encompasses all of these things. We have an explicit objective-setting approach as part of our performance management. At the beginning of the year, every single employee has objectives set. We use those objectives for career counseling and as part of the annual performance management process, so people's expectations are set about what we expect.

TM: What challenges impact talent management at Accenture?

Smart: The biggest challenge — and the biggest opportunity — for us is the size, the growth trajectory and how we work. We're not multinational or international; we truly work across borders. But it makes talent management very challenging: making sure that we maintain the culture, that people are learning the same way and that when we look at succession planning, the successor doesn't have to be someone in the U.S. That global nature makes it more interesting and more valuable to our clients.

TM: How does Accenture change or create leadership behaviors that lead to optimal workforce performance?

Smart: Changing leadership behavior, that's a big thing. Because of the culture and the deeply embedded core values we've had forever, it becomes more of an evolution versus a change. We have a leadership model, and there are three main areas: There's a value creator component, a business operator component and a people developer. There are behaviors, actions, beliefs and expectations in each area, and no matter what level you are, you have responsibilities in each.