During tough times one should not use a blunt edged sword

Prithvi Shergill, lead India human resources, Accenture is in a way the
face behind the organizations rapid growth in India and its transformation into
one of the most sought after employers. Shergill has more than eighteen years of
experience working extensively in the human resources area, and has designed and
incubated the establishment of the Organization Effectiveness team for HR in
Accenture India. He is also responsible for growing the human performance
capabilities through a suite of offerings impacting leadership alignment,
consistency in culture and industrialization of people practices. In an
exclusive interview with Dataquest, Shergill talks about Accentures India
strategy and achievements on the HR front. Excerpts

What has been Accentures HR focus in India over the past few years?

Our story so far has been quite exciting as we have been growing organically
and exploring transformational projects to gain momentum in the India market. We
have been operating in India since the 1980s. However it is only since 2003 that
we leveraged on the opportunity to access talent in India and today we have a
workforce close to 40,000 people. Over the past few years, we have focused all
our energies on acquiring that talent, empowering them, bringing them into the
firm, making them a part of Accentures global culture, and providing them a
global platform to display their capabilities. Today, our people practices are
among the best and we are among the twenty companies in the world to have been
accredited with Level 5 PCMM certification.

How have you ensured a multi-cultural talent pool at Accenture?

Being a global firm, soft skill training and imbibing cross-cultural
sensitivity is something that we focus on from the start up level. Also, we have
leveraged our global infrastructure and have implemented common processes and
systems across all our offices worldwide. For eg, we have a common performance
management system and learning management system which have ensured that our
workforce is going up a similar learning curve. About three years ago our
leadership team sat down to articulate the kind of culture that should be
developed in Accenture India and built a set of culture essentials that was then
slowly introduced in to our workforce in India. These investments have paid off
well as we have a truly multi cultural talent pool across geographies.

How has Accenture been tackling the middle management crisis?

We follow a specific competency model for hiring at every level. For hiring
at the middle management level we have certified interviewers who have expertise
in the global Accenture competency model. Apart from this, the access to
learning assets addresses this problem to a great extent. Also, we focus
strongly on helping employees identify their development needs. Every employee
at Accenture has a personal counsellor who helps the individual identify his
strengths and become a better professional. In addition, our ability to bring
global expertise to our employees in India through global career programs and by
bringing Accentures global leaders into India to share their experiences help
in addressing the gaps in skill and knowledge.

Employability is still a big issue with the industry-academia gap. What
has Accenture been doing to bridge this gap?

Accenture has made a significant investment in Indiain facilities and
technology, but most importantly in great people to build, develop and train our
workforce in India. We have partnered with various academic institutions with an
aim to bridge the employability gap and ensure that the curriculum is cutting
edge. We have tied up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys office of
Professional Education Programs (MIT PEP), a training and certification program
based on the companys application delivery curriculum. Accenture has formed a
joint program with MIT to launch the Accenture Solutions Delivery Academy in
India to bring additional focus and recognition to critical technology delivery
skills across the IT workforce. More than 11,000 Indian employees are enrolled
in the program.

The company has also formed the Accenture Management Development Academy (AMDA) in
collaboration with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

While carrying out campus recruitments, we invest anywhere between 12-16
weeks of training period to make sure that candidates have the necessary skills
as they move onto their final year projects and post the projects they are
provided on the job training. That helps them to become fully productive. Like
most progressive organizations, it is essential to invest early in the supply
chain. With this in view, we are working with various faculties and have
customised program at various campuses.

What have been some of the initiatives taken to empower female employees?

Inclusion and diversity is part of our core culture, and sensitivity toward
women employees is built into our HR process framework. Today, we have 31% women
employees in Accenture India. We have found in an internal study that women
employees are more capable of transferring skills compared to men and hence we
have tried to leverage on their capabilities for internal knowledge sharing. Two
years ago the company decided to appoint human capital and diversity leads
across geographies to push women to take on leadership roles. That gave us a
sense of focus and specific results around attracting women employees, retaining
them and helping them grow within the organization. Within the HR department I
have a specific team who support this agenda. We have been organizing special
program to familiarise women with the companys culture when they join the
organization. As a part of our broader HR agenda, we have been looking into
their needs such as day care center, flexible working hours, etc.

Another key aspect that we have focused on is to maintain the same benchmarks
within the performance management system for both male and female employees to
eliminate any bias in evaluation.

What is your outlook for 2009-2010?

We will continue to remain cautiously optimistic on the HR front. We still
see a demand for skills and there is a great deal of aspirational value attached
to brand Accenture. As of date, we still have vacancies that we plan to fill.
However, the pace of recruitment has shifted to the slow track. We plan to
continue to remain employee centric and make sure that the actions we take
strike a balance between delivering business outcome and meeting employee
promises.

Does Accenture have any plans to retrench the workforce globally?

At present, we do not have any plans to resize our workforce. During these
times one should not use a blunt edged sword and instead redirect the focus on
nurturing capabilities. It is very easy to go in for a workforce retrenchment
plan and end up losing key capabilities.

Priya Kekre

priyak@cybermedia.co.in