Accenture: An Analysis

INTRODUCTION:

Accenture is a world’s largest management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Dedicated to bring modernization, Accenture work together with its clients to help them become high performance businesses and governments.

Accenture also helps its clients to cut costs as well as outsource technology functions. Employees contain experience in a diversity of industries in key business areas, together with customer relationship management, supply chain management, business strategy, technology and outsourcing.

The company divides its practice keen on five core operational groups: communications and high technology, financial services, public service, products, and resources which encompass more than 15 industries.

The business global headquarters are in Bermuda. It has administrative center in more than 200 cities in 52 countries around the globe. 96 of the top Fortune Global 100 companies are Accenture clients.

History:

Primarily know as Andersen Consulting, Accenture was formally recognized in 1989 when a group of partners from the Consulting division of a variety of Arthur Andersen firms around the world shaped a new organization determined on consulting and technology services associated to running large-scale systems integration and attractive business processes.

Accenture changed its name from Andersen Consulting in 2001 past severing ties from its parent company Arthur Andersen. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in April, 2001.

Benefits:

1. Medical and Dental

2. Long-Term Disability

3. Basic Employee Life/Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) Insurance

4. Optional Employee Life Insurance

5. Optional AD&D Insurance

6. Dependent Life Insurance

7. Flexible Spending Accounts

8. Profit Sharing

9. Pensions

Definition of Human Resource Planning:

“Rigorous Human Resource planning associates people management to the organization’s mission, vision, goals and objectives, in addition to its strategic plan and budgetary resources. A key objective of HR planning is to get the accurate number of people with the true skills, experience and competencies in the right jobs at the right time at the right cost.”

Need of human resource planning in an organization:

There are three different factors that need to be taken into consideration while preparing human resource planning i.e. Individual approach, Group approach, and organizational approach.

Individual approach: Uniqueness of each individual derives from inherited and environmental factor. Individuals build up distinctive systems of attitudes, assumptions, values, expectations etc. Therefore fundamentally influence personal motivation and interpersonal relationships.

Group approach: Balance between task requirements and team maintenance is vital, Membership of group must be valuable, Entire organization harmony is paramount. Positive steps are required to reduce inter-group competition.

Organizational approach: The interrelationship of component elements, the existence and influence of informal system is fundamentally important. Organizations must be specifically designed to suit particular function, which should integrate the component groups.

Organizations need to build up a capacity for self-analysis for example organizational development, Organization changes rapidly in response to non-rational dynamics.

Role of human resource planning is to bring together the individual approach and group approach in order to achieve the organizational mission, vision, goals and the objectives.

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PLANNING:

“Recruitment is about establishing a pool of potential candidates using different methods and it is considered more external than selection”. [1]

The overall aim of a recruitment process is to get the most appropriate candidates with the least costs.

Cushway [3] defines the stages of recruitment process:

· Identifying the need to recruit

· Identifying the job requirements

· Deciding the sources of potential recruits

· Deciding the selection method

· Short listing candidates

· Selecting the successful candidate

· Notifying candidates of the outcome

· Appointing the successful candidate

“Selection is the process used in assessing the candidates using different selection methods to find the most suitable person for the organization. It is important to consider that recruitment and selection have a close linkage and it is difficult to interpret where recruitment ends and selection begins”. [2]

There are two types of selection processes: en bloc and sequenced. In en bloc selection process all the candidates attend every selection method. Compared to sequential selection process, in which after every sequence the candidates that scored the lowest are left out. [4]

Accenture recruitment and selection process:

ACCENTURE hire MERIT TRACK for their recruitment process, which includes 4 steps:

1. Written essay writing

2. Group Discussion

3. HR interview

4. Technical interview

This selection procedure, which is used by Accenture, is one of the standard procedures i.e. Sequence method for Recruitment and selection process.

Other method, which is used, is recruiting and selecting candidates is through referrals. In this way Accenture provides an opportunity to work with family and friends by referring them to the company.

In this way Accenture is able to deliver leading-edge solutions constantly to their clients by bringing collectively highly talented people in a creative, collaborative environment. It is this environment that makes daily challenges pleasurable and rewarding and is one of the reasons why Accenture is a great place to work.

Accenture takes self-importance in their success at:

1. Living by their core values

2. Focusing on teamwork

3. Investing in training and development:

4. Providing a supportive work environment:

Two of Accenture’s core values-“best people” and “respect for the individual”-form the establishment of everything we do. This groundwork allows us to link teams effectively, conduct global business and deliver high performance to our clients.

Accenture provides immense professional development opportunities. With many training classes for the employees and intelligent and hardworking colleagues the environment is greatly collaborative.

Various recruitment and selection methods are ineffective if the organization fails to attract the potential candidates to apply. A positive image of the company allows the recruiting company to select from a large pool of applicants, but the downsize is that it also attracts candidates that are incompatible for the position to start with. The stage of separating applications is then burdened; however, a well-designed application form can filter the amount of applicants with less effort.

TRANING AND DEVELOPMENT:

Training and Development refers to imparting of definite skills, abilities and acquaintance to its employees. Training & development is an attempt to develop current or future employee performance by rising an employee’s ability to perform during learning, usually by varying the employee’s attitude or increasing his or her skills and knowledge. The need for training & development is determined by the employee’s performance deficiency, which is computed as follows

Training & Development need = Standard performance – Actual performance.

Although training and education vary in nature and orientation, they are complementary. For example employees who undergo training is accepted to have had some formal education. Therefore, no training program is complete without an aspect of education. As new and more employees are called upon to exercise judgments and to decide alternative solutions to the job problems, training programmers’ seek to enlarge and develop the individual through education. For example, employees in well-paid jobs and/or employees in the service business may be essential to make sovereign decision in regards their work and their relationship with clients. Hence, organizations have to believe essentials of both education and training while planning their training programmers’.

Development refers to individuals learning opportunities considered to help employees grow. Development is not mainly skill oriented. Instead, it provides general knowledge and attitudes, which will be helpful to employees in higher positions. Efforts towards development often depend on individual drive and ambition. Development activities, such as those supplied by management developmental programmers’, are generally voluntary.

Training belongs in an entitlement-based organisation, one where the individual submissively waits to be specified what he or she requires in order to do the job. If it is not approaching, then it’s all the mistake of the organisation. On the other hand, there are no instructors in the learning environment. The beginner has to be self-initiated and assume responsibility for his or her learning.

Training and development in Accenture:

In Accenture training and development is design to achieve high performance.

It makes considerable and constant investments in developing their people, contributing approximately 80 percent more training hours than their competitors do. In 2009 alone, they invested approximately US$800 million in training and professional development, providing 12 million hours in educating their people.

Training is conducted in a variety of ways: in a classroom or over the web, locally and globally. These include company and project-specific courses, to improve their skills and facilitate them to meet up their career goals.

In Accenture knowledge sharing was recognized as a natural fit beneath learning and was moved into capability development from Training and Development and has given the mission to create a new vision for learning, to develop the strategy for achieving that vision and to execute the strategy.

Accenture moved some of its training outside the classroom, they developed an e-learning system, which is known as ‘MyLearning’. The global learning portal myLearning offers over 20,000 online courses and other resources This system was based on the idea that everyone at Accenture was self-motivated towards his or her own development and would spend the time to explore the training opportunities available to them through Mylearning.

Accenture’s mission is to help their people gain added proficiency in the skills that contribute to their business. They believe that training is an efficient way to acquire a person to a moderate level of proficiency, and that job assignments, collaboration and knowledge sharing are key to growing proficiency at higher levels.

Even though knowledge sharing is more open-ended than prearranged, it provides an opportunity to attach training with Knowledge Management. Accenture is going to start influencing their Knowledge Management solution to better correspond their job-readiness training.

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND STAFF APPRAISAL:

Employee Motivation:

One of the secrets of a high-quality performing company is the reality that they recognized the significance of staff motivation.

For a staff to work effectively and efficiently, employees must be motivated. This means that their efforts should be rewarded with physical, financial and psychological benefits and incentives so that they could continue a high level of morale, satisfaction, and productivity. It means that workers must be stimulated to take a desired course of action by presenting them with the opportunities to gain what they desire.

Employee motivation is a purpose of all managers in general and of personnel managers in particular. The following are some of the techniques that can be used by a manager to motivate employees.

1. Ensuring employee contribution in the decision making process

2. Paying sufficient and fair remuneration to employees

3. Praising employees for good quality works done

4. Keeping employees’ in the know regarding changes in company policy

5. Showing importance in workers and benevolent them adequate, personal attention

6. Making the fullest use of employees’ skills, ideas, suggestions and abilities

7. Giving employees helpful direction and support when they are in difficulty

8. Making employees feel guarded of their jobs and free from anxiety

9. Setting high-quality examples and exhibiting personal diligence

10. Communicating principles to employees and making them know where they stand how well they are doing and what they can do to progress.

Staff Appraisal:

Staff or performance appraisal is an integral component of each manager’s function Performance Appraisal is the regular, official and recorded review of the way in which an individual is performing his job. It is the estimation of the performance of employees. Performance appraisal is the continuous systematic appraisal of the individual with respect to his performance on the job and his possibility for development.

The main objectives of staff performance appraisal are as follows:

1. To identify and reward competency and excellence

2. To identify staff training needs and extend the potential of those employ that can satisfy various future manpower needs inside the organizations.

3. To identify performance deficiencies and impel improvements in them

4. To motivate employees to be highly productive based on their knowledge of a approaching estimation of their performance

A planned and formalized performance appraisal scheme involves:

(a) A definition of understandable job objectives, targets and standards for every employee

(b) An objective estimation of staff performance and results beside previously agreed standards.

(c) An open discussion of the consequences and their implications

(d) An agreement of committed plans intended for the future work of the appraise and the superior.

The traditional technique of appraising employees involves the annual filling of a standard appraisal form by the employees’ superiors. The form generally deals with different aspects of the employees’ work such as output level, co-operation with co-workers, ability to work independently, initiative, cost consciousness, goal orientation, etc. The performance of each employee in the year under review is then rated for each of these criteria using a numerical scale. The scores will then be summed collectively to decide whether the employee has performed well or not.

Employee motivation and staff appraisal in Accenture:

Accenture believes that intranet provides an ideal platform for appraisals. Accenture Web-based solution is inexpensive to organize to managers, quick for the entire parties to complete and provides a fast and simple way to analyze the organization’s progress and results. Accenture appraisal solution in addition includes management by objectives (MBO), competency management, and performance feedback.

It uses the three key building blocks to high-performance business:

Ability to identify and utilize key industry value levers

Mastery of core capabilities and

High-performance anatomy.

According to Accenture’s investigation and mastery scale, functional pioneers in performance appraisal have a tendency to employ a number of “best practices” in their performance appraisal systems, together with the use of detailed performance criteria, rating scales so as to maximize distinctions between employee performance levels, trained appraisers and constructive performance feedback.

As Accenture shifts to a competitive global marketplace where intellectual capital and workforce proficiency are essential drivers of shareholder value, human capital development develops other crucial to accomplish high performance. Because of its links to various other human capital processes and business outcomes, a successful performance appraisal process is a wise investment that will facilitate organizations accomplish high performance.

MANAGEMENT STYLE:

Managing is one of the most essential human activities. From the moment human beings began forming social organizations to achieve aims and objectives they could not achieve as individuals, managing has been necessary to make sure the coordination of individual efforts.

Management is the method of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals, working together in groups, efficiently achieve selected aims [5]. In expanded form, Management definition means several things:

First, as managers, people carry out the managerial roles of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling.

Second, management relates to any kind of organization.

Third, management relates to managers at all organizational levels.

Fourth, the aim of all managers is the same, to make surplus.

Finally, managing is concerned with productivity, which involves effectiveness and efficiency.

Management refers to the development of bureaucracy with the purpose of develops its importance from the need for strategic planning, co-ordination, directing and controlling of large and complex decision-making process. Basically, hence, management entails the acquirement of managerial competence, and efficiency in the following key areas: problem solving, management, administration, human resource and organizational leadership.

The three basic management objectives are:

To ensuring organizational goals and targets are met – with least cost and minimum waste.

To look after the health and welfare, and safety of staff.

To protect the machinery and resources of the organization which also includes the human resources.

The different approaches of Management are:

Classical Approach: This emphasis on the purpose of the organization, the formal structure, hierarchy of management. Its behavior is rational and logical.

It has two branches: Scientific management, which rearranges the most efficient method of working, and Bureaucracy which is the combination of organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity, usually in large organizations.

Human Relation Approach: It emphasis on the leadership, groups, behavior of the people, paying attention to social factors at work.

Systems Approach: Systems approach reconciles Classical and Human Relations approaches which refers “Organizations without people” and “People without organizations”.

Contingency Approach: In this approach the management is entirely situational and there is no best way of doing anything .It is “if” “then” kind of approach which is practically suited.

Management is the process of designing and maintaining an environment for the purpose of efficiently accomplishing selected aims. Managers carry out the functions of planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. Managing is an essential activity at all organizational levels.

However, the managerial skills required vary with organizational levels. The goal of all managers is to create a surplus and to be productive by achieving a favorable output-input ration within a specific time period with due consideration for quality. Productivity implies effectiveness and efficiency.

Finally, the organization is an open system that operates within and act together with the environment. The systems approach to management includes inputs from the external environment and from claimants, external factors, outputs, the transformation process, the communication system, and a way to recuperate the system.

CONCLUSION:

From the above evaluations we conclude that Accenture is a global organization, which serves its clients all over the world with high performance and delivers the quality of work.

The training and development process can be still improved by enhancing new methods, which are more practical in nature, which helps the employees of Accenture to grow in a broader way and can achieve their organizational goals in short period of time.

As Accenture is collaborating with Merit Track for its selection and recruitment process which provides the young generation a platform to explore their innovative ideas which also in turn helps Accenture to grow in a broader way.

Accenture motivates its employees by recognizing their potential abilities and appraising them at the right place and at the right position.

REFERENCES:

Accenture plc Company profile, Retrieved Monday, April 4 2011 7:29am ET,

From www.accenture.com

Shaun Tyson, “Essentials of Human Resource Management”, Fifth Edition, page number 19, 40, 55.

Human resource planning, Retrieved April 4, 2011, from http://work911.com/planningmaster/faq/hrdefinition.htm

Timo Salmia ,’Recruitment and Selection of International Professionals:Case Company X’ ,PhD Thesis,Elizabeth San Miguel and Mia Leino (Tarja Saarinen)

‘InsideKnowledge’ Aug 22 , 2006 ,Volume 10, Issue 1.

Kazeemjames, 2001, ‘The need for Employee Motivation and Appraisal 87’.

Meredith A.Vey and James M. Benton, Mastering Workforce Performance Appraisal’

D. R. Ilgen and E. D. Pulakos ‘Introduction: Employee Performance in Today’s Organization’, in The Changing Nature of Work Performance, edition7 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999).

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Dr. Yasin Olum, Lecturer Department of Political Science and Public Administration Makerere University,’ MODERN MANAGEMENT THEORIES AND PRACTICES’; at the 15th East African Central Banking Course, held on 12th July 2004, at Kenya School of Monetary Studies.

L J Mullins, Management and Organizational Behaviors, Chapter 3