2. A Culture of Colleague Support
Being able to support colleagues is an essential attribute for Accenture employees, since so many of them work in teams that are spread out around the world. The culture of people helping one another is often a hard concept to grasp for new hires, says Janet Hoffman, managing director of Accenture’s global retail practice.
3. Company on the Lookout for Burnout
Without having the traditional boundaries of home and office, many workers lose sight of the division, an expert on work/life balance says. To address this at Accenture, the company tries hard to address employees’ personal needs, as well as their professional ones, says Richard Westphal, director of the firm’s U.S. Retain Talent group.
Accenture may be a firm that runs virtually, but it does try to get employees together at regular intervals, says its chief human resources officer. Every office has a number of “communities,” or groups of employees from a certain business line.
By Jessica Marquez Comments 0 | Recommend 0
ne danger of being able to work anytime from anywhere is burnout. Without having
the traditional boundaries of home and office, many workers lose sight of the division,
says Kathie Lingle, director of the Alliance for Work-Life Progress.
To address this at Accenture, the company tries hard to address
employees’ personal needs, as well as their professional ones, says Richard Westphal,
director of Accenture’s U.S. Retain Talent group.
A few years ago, when Westphal and his team began hearing
that employees wanted the ability to take a sabbatical or extended vacation, executives
came together to see what they could do.
"Particularly younger employees were saying that they didn’t
want to have to be here for 10 years before they could take several weeks at a time
off," he says. "So we held focus groups of employees and asked them if they would
be willing to self-fund a sabbatical program."
"[We asked employees] if they
would
be willing to self-fund a sabbatical program." —Richard Westphal, director of Accenture's U.S. Retain Talent group
The answer was a resounding yes.
In January, Accenture launched its Future Leave program. Through
the program, U.S employees can arrange to have a portion of their paycheck set aside
for future time off, which can be as long as three months.
Employees who have been with the company for three consecutive
years and have manager approval can apply for the program. For the first half of
this year, 100 employees were participating.
Accenture also gauges employees’ perceptions of how well work
and life are balanced at the company through a personal engagement survey.
While most employers ask employees to rate the company’s effectiveness
in career or professional development, Accenture has started asking employees how
well Accenture is doing in giving them a good quality of life. The company also
asks them to rank quality-of-life issues compared with such elements as pay and
benefits. Employees also rate Accenture’s performance in such areas as diversity
and reputation, opportunities, work, competitive rewards and people. They rank these
in order of personal importance as well.
Supervisors use these personal engagement surveys with their
direct reports. Career counselors use them as part of their annual midyear discussions
with employees, says Jill Smart, chief human resources officer.
"We recognize that not everyone wants the same thing, so this
is a way for us to understand what employees want," she says.
Accenture is leading the way in bringing the personal-life
discussions into performance management, Lingle says.
"Too often companies make the discussions about employees’
personal goals as window dressing," she says. "By having employees talk about their
personal priorities for the upcoming year as well as their career goals, Accenture
is really bringing together the personal and professional, which is almost unheard
of today."
Workforce Management, September 22, 2008, p. 24
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Jessica Marquez is New York bureau chief for Workforce Management. E-mail editors@workforce.com to
comment. Next Article: 2. A Culture of Colleague Support
Being able to support colleagues is an essential attribute for Accenture employees, since so many of them work in teams that are spread out around the world. The culture of people helping one another is often a hard concept to grasp for new hires, says Janet Hoffman, managing director of Accenture’s global retail practice.
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ne danger of being able to work anytime from anywhere is burnout. Without having
the traditional boundaries of home and office, many workers lose sight of the division,
says Kathie Lingle, director of the Alliance for Work-Life Progress.
