Inclusion & Diversity at Accenture

Cross-Cultural Programs

The Inclusion & Diversity organization drives activities that support teaming and learning in order to work more effectively across cultures. With Accenture people serving clients in more than 120 countries around the world, understanding cultural differences, values and beliefs is essential. To help our employees work across cultures, Accenture provides online and classroom training for people at all levels that is aimed at heightening employees’ awareness of cultural differences. We also offer a wealth of resources and robust tools that build awareness and acceptance of the personal styles and values of others.

One such resource is GlobeSmart, which offers 24/7 online access to up-to-date information on global business effectiveness. Additionally, Accenture people have access to training, such as an online Building Cross-Cultural Awareness course, which teaches participants how to maximize value with a multicultural team.

Employee Resource Groups

In many cities around the world, Accenture supports groups, meetings and other opportunities to connect individuals who wish to strengthen their support network. Employee resource groups (ERGs) help our people build connections and address issues that are of interest to them personally. These groups, which may be organized around a common interest, ethnicity, sexual orientation, career path, family arrangement, faith or religion, focus on an individual’s needs and interests, as well as the needs of the communities in which we work and live.

ERGs develop based on local demand and interest, and differ from location to location. No matter where they are, their goals are to:

• Promote diversity through initiatives that focus on education, awareness, professional and personal development and cross-cultural interactions.
• Foster a means for individuals with similar backgrounds to network around similar challenges and opportunities.
• Offer professional direction.
• Support national and local recruiting and retention efforts.
• Build external relationships with diverse businesses.
• Support diverse nonprofit organizations as part of our corporate citizenship initiative.

For example, employees in the United Kingdom have access to interest groups ranging from ethnicity to enablement for people with disabilities, to sexual orientation and religion.

Flexible Work

A variety of flexibility programs helps us demonstrate our commitment to building confident individuals and to managing an inclusive organization. On an individual level, flexibility is part of what enables Accenture to attract, retain and engage its diverse population. From an organizational standpoint, flexibility is part of managing an inclusive corporation—integrating principles of inclusion into practice and enabling Accenture to effectively compete in the global marketplace.

Accenture encourages a balance between work and personal priorities as a means of integrating principles of inclusion into practice. Our global and country-specific flexibility policies describe the specific work arrangements that are formally considered “flexible work.” They are:

• Part-time
• Job sharing
• Flex-time
• Telecommuting/working from home
• Engagement programs: full weekends at home
• Extended weekends at home: extended client/home location

Learn more about work arrangements at Accenture.

Find out how Accenture can help you balance work and personal life when you are working away from your home location.

Accenture Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Network

Ensuring an inclusive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees across the globe is a key and integral part of Accenture’s global inclusion and diversity strategy. We are committed to raising awareness and educating all Accenture people about our LGBT community, while simultaneously supporting our LGBT employees and providing a workplace of equality.

At Accenture, we adhere to a strict non-discrimination policy and provide a clear, open line of communication between employees and management. Recognizing that individual countries may have unique laws affecting the LGBT community, we pay particular attention to ensuring that our global policies and practices have their intended effect in all the geographies in which we operate.

Accenture is proud to be a corporate leader in supporting the LGBT community. We were one of the first to add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression information to its nondiscrimination policy. Additionally, in 2010, we became one of only nine companies in the United States to implement Transgender Transition Guidelines that comply with World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards, and we signed on as a sponsor of the all-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Today, we provide employee benefits to same-sex couples in many of the countries in which we operate, and we continue to work to extend these benefits to all our employees.

On a global basis, we:

• Include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression language in our non-discrimination policy.
• Provide same-sex domestic partners with accompanied cross-border assignment benefits and a global medical plan for long-term assignments and some transfers.
• Support our local LGBT Network teams.
• Have introduced policies, where permitted by law, to ensure the equal treatment of employees, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Provide training inclusive of bisexual and gender identity issues.

Accenture’s Global LGBT Network brings our LGBT community and allies together for networking, mentoring and information sharing, providing a vibrant force to our high-performance culture. Working closely with our Inclusion & Diversity teams, the Network has been instrumental in helping to craft inclusive recruitment and retention policies and adopt guidelines that make Accenture one of the most inclusive and progressive companies in the world for LGBT people. For example, in some countries, the Network helped create policies offering domestic partner benefits and helped shape recruiting efforts for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

During 2010, Accenture advanced its LGBT agenda by strengthening existing programs, adding new sponsorships and launching new initiatives. Accenture is distinguished by programs such as fertility services/IVF coverage and expansion of the supplier diversity mentoring program to include LGBT-owned businesses. Work is also underway to enhance the health benefits for employees who identify themselves as transgender, including gender reassignment procedures. In addition, we have established policies and guidelines to assist transgender employees with their transition in the workplace.

In the US, Accenture again received a perfect score of 100 percent on the HRC Foundation's Corporate Equality Index (CEI). This is the fourth consecutive year that Accenture scored 100 percent and was recognized as a top employer for LGBT people by this index, which surveys employers’ policies on diversity, training, health care and domestic partnership benefits, and reports the best companies for LGBT employees.

Inclusiveness will always be at the core of everything we do at Accenture. As rights for LGBT people and same-sex couples expand globally, our ability as a global company to be proactive and address gaps will continue to set us apart in the work place.

Learn more about our commitment to the LGBT community by downloading our brochure, A Workplace of Equality. [PDF, 3.49MB]

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Read more about Accenture's LGBT community.

For more information, please contact our LGBT Network at lgbt@accenture.com.

Persons with Disabilities

We are committed to creating and providing an inclusive, open and equitable environment for individuals with different backgrounds, lifestyles, needs and expectations to be successful. To build awareness and understanding of issues faced by persons with disabilities, we sponsor networking and information sharing. We also encourage the provision of reasonable accommodations—modifications or adjustments to a job or the work environment to assure that a qualified individual with a disability has rights and privileges in employment equal to those of employees without disabilities—to create an adaptable work environment.

Our geographic units and countries have developed a variety of initiatives specifically to support persons with disabilities. For example, the Mobile Café, a road shop business run by persons with disabilities, recently debuted in Seoul with support from Accenture in Korea. The coffee-shop-on-wheels was formally presented in October 2010 by Accenture Korea to the Korea Rehabilitation Fund (KRF), a nonprofit organization that provides professional barista training to persons with disabilities. Accenture volunteers assisted in the planning and execution of this Skills to Succeed initiative, which will provide persons with disabilities skills and employment opportunities to become active members of society.

Supplier Diversity

Accenture promotes an inclusive work environment that significantly influences how we run our business, and we strive to work with others who embrace our values. Our supplier diversity efforts demonstrate our commitment to promoting economic growth within the diverse communities in which the company does business, while maintaining our standards for providing high-quality service delivery.

We believe that diverse suppliers should have equal opportunity to participate in the procurement sourcing process. We focus not only on expanding our own pool of diverse suppliers, we also encourage our large suppliers to leverage diverse suppliers on Accenture’s behalf.

Through our procurement practices, we track and encourage purchases with diverse suppliers, such as minority-owned, woman-owned, historically underutilized business (HUB) zone, service-disabled veteran-owned, veteran-owned, lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender-owned business, small or other disadvantaged business enterprises.

In fiscal 2011, we directed nearly 23 percent of our procurement spending in the United States to diverse businesses.

To further demonstrate our commitment, Accenture sponsors or is a member of the following organizations:

United States:

• National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC)
• Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC)
• National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC)

Global:

• WEConnect International
• WEConnect Europe
• WEConnect Canada
• WEConnect India
• Minority Supplier Development – UK (MSD-UK)
• Canadian Aboriginal Minority Supplier Council (CAMSC)

The Diverse Supplier Development Program

In 2006 we launched a formal mentoring program between Accenture executives and diverse suppliers, the Diverse Supplier Development Program (DSDP). The eighteen month program comprises quarterly training symposia—on topics such as business development and sales effectiveness, strategic planning, marketing, cloud computing and environmental sustainability to name a few—and one-on-one meetings between Accenture executives and partnered suppliers, who learn more about our business and strategies to expand their businesses. The meetings, tailored for each individual based on the needs of the supplier with the expertise of the mentor, provide participants with an opportunity to learn about and discuss topics that they have identified as key challenges in running and growing their businesses, as well as to network and seek counsel from Accenture executives.

The Diverse Supplier Development Program has been well received and has grown from 10 M/WBE certified companies from across the US participating in the inaugural class to 26 diverse companies—including MBE, WBE, VBE, LGBTBE and SBE—participating in the third class, launched April 2011. The response from our executives has been so overwhelming that we have been afforded the opportunity this year to provide 2 executive mentors per protégé company.

The program has also seen global expansion with the launch of DSDP Canada in April 2010, which includes 6 companies.

Training

Training is a priority in Accenture’s overall career experience, and is one of the most effective ways we can make inclusion and diversity part of our culture. Accenture offers training programs to educate individuals, to promote inclusion and diversity in the workplace and to prepare our people to deliver high performance through a diverse workforce.

We embed diversity topics into many of our core curriculum courses and also offer stand-alone diversity training. The variety of courses Accenture offers educates and inspires our people, develops our diverse workforce, and enables our people to foster an inclusive environment.

Accenture divides Inclusion & Diversity training into three areas:

• Diversity Awareness to help develop a greater sensitivity to the challenges and opportunities presented by working in an increasingly dynamic, global and diverse organization.
• Diversity Management to help our leaders more effectively manage a diverse workforce and create an inclusive work environment.
• Professional Development to help solidify the integrated approach to deepening our commitment to our women and minorities by helping build skills to increase their personal success in Accenture.

Women

From our training and mentoring programs, to our celebration of International Women’s Day, to our internal networks connecting women around the world with each other and with available resources, Accenture is committed to supporting women. Find out more.