Accenture's War For Talent In India

Accenture’s War for Talent in India

HRM CASE ANALYSIS

Section D Group 10

GAURAV SAINI PRIYANKA BHAGAT P. KARTHIK SIDHARTHMAHAJAN SOUMYADEEP CHAKRABORTY VAIDA HEMACHANDAR VATSALA ARORA

2011IPM031 2014PGP273 2014PGP240 2014PGP363 2014PGP377 2014PGP410 2011IPM118

Contents Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................................3 Introduction......................................................................................................................................................3 Problem Statement...........................................................................................................................................4 Analysis.............................................................................................................................................................4 Alternatives......................................................................................................................................................7 Recommendation.............................................................................................................................................8 Implementation................................................................................................................................................9

Executive Summary Accenture, with more than 180,000 employees and operations in 49 countries, generated 19.7 billion USD in revenue with a market capitalization of 26.4 billion USD. Accenture diversified its offering in India from consulting to IT services and BPO services since 2001. It had followed several HR practices to meet its ambitious human resources requirements. It has moved from the decentralized HR structure to centralized structure to achieve the operational effectiveness. They have extremely innovative in their human resources practices. They have standardized the process of hiring of IT professionals. They have extremely successful in maintaining growth without compromising qualities in these services. They have developed frameworks like PCMM (people capability maturity model) to evolve the HR and overall business practices. The entire structure has been developed keeping the people in the centre. However, Accenture wanted to refocus on their consulting business and wanted to develop a global talent and innovation network of consultants in India. It demanded hiring of 2000 consultant in one year. Consulting as a job is extremely different in nature when compared to the IT jobs. Consultant need higher industry and domain expertise compared to IT. Moreover, roles demanded not only industry specialists but also PhDs in economics, statistics, social sciences etc. Since Accenture does not have experience of hiring in such high number of consultants, it challenged the existing practices. The report deals with the nuances of the existing HR and recruitment model of Accenture. It does a comparative analysis of the skills of a consultant and an IT professional. It also investigates the similarities between the existing system and that required for hiring consultants. It can be observed that some of the existing practices can be directly incorporated while hiring the consultants. The report also offers alternatives to the existing one like partnering with third party recruiters, developing standardized processes etc to cater the existing problem. Finally it talks about the implementation plan so that one can roll out the plan.

Introduction Since 2001, Accenture has primarily hired IT and BPO professionals. It is evident from that fact that it had 37000 employee strong IT arm. The number is extremely high considering it only started operation in 2001. Thus people start recognizing Accenture India as an IT focused wing of Accenture. In 2006, Accenture has again started focusing on its management consulting arm. There are trying to develop a global talent and innovation network (GTIN) that will perform roles across functions, including customer relationship management, finance and performance management etc. Thus they needed to hire 2000 management consultant in a span of year. Consulting required specialized skills and industry expertise. Consulting demands higher knowledge capital compared IT or other businesses. Thus people with PhDs in economics, mathematics, statistics and social sciences need to be recruited. Initially, the HR team was decentralized and was aligned to respective businesses i.e. management consulting, IT and BPO. But when Accenture India worked with Accenture global HR it restructured its HR service delivery model into three key components. The new HR service delivery model helped in controlling cost, growing head counts and scale of deliverables in India. Centralized service increased the integration of HR processes and eliminated duplication. HR performance was measured through three sets of key metrics-

recruiting, effectiveness of core HR functions and employee engagement. These three elements gave positive impact on overall business; as a result Accenture India was recorded as the highest engagement employer across any Accenture geographic unit worldwide and scored significantly higher than the other Indian industry. However, this hiring of 2000 management consultants pose unique set of challenges to Accenture like attracting and finding the right candidates, scaling up the recruitment process. The scenario puts Jill Smart on the spot to come with proper tangible solutions to solve the problem.

Problem Statement To successfully hire 2000 management consultants in a year by attracting most diverse talent pool without compromising on the quality?

Analysis Accenture has already built a centralized HR structure to support the HR operations in India. Thus far they have been extremely successful in meeting the requirement in the IT Services and BPO arms. They have risen to the occasion and developed system that has enabled them to meet the needs. IT services structure has evolved specially over the years and it manages 37000 employees. However, the current problem is a little different. They need to hire 2000 management consultants in a year’s span. The number itself might not seem very daunting but the there are a few challenges, a) Building Accenture as a brand that is focused in management consulting. The reason is of particular importance since it has done major hiring only in IT Services and BPO. People have started having the perception that it is an IT focused company. b) All the structure that has been developed like functional recruitment model are primarily developed keeping IT in mind. These industrial hiring systems are designed primarily for IT sector, these cannot be directly replicated for management consulting. c) The number of hiring is not very high. However getting quality applicants for the roles might be a little difficult. d) As a company, Accenture was unsure of the channels to reach out to these future employees. This is primarily because the backgrounds of these people are extremely diverse. Thus they may not use the traditional channel that is used by the IT professionals. e) Positioning the company attractively so that it can compete with the other competitors to get these people on board. Each of these problems can be addressed using different existing HR strategies of Accenture and redeveloping a few to solve the existing problem. The typical job description of a management consultant who would be working in the global talent and innovation network (GTIN) is: a) Solve major business problems of the clients i.e. big corporate, start ups or NGOs b) Support the client teams with the research and analysis

c) Perform functional roles across domains spanning from customer relationship management, finance and performance management to talent and organizational performance d) Travel to the client site for interactions and problem solving e) Create new revenue opportunities for the consultants in the field by using research and analytics to develop new models and other content f) Develop fresh ideas to expand the businesses of Accenture Consulting Since the job requirement is not the only factor. We need to investigate the typical skill requirement for the same, so that one can comment about the exact fit for the role, a) Require great research and analytical skills b) Need to be a great communicator c) Need to have in depth knowhow of a particular industry and / PhDs in either economics, statistics, social sciences etc d) Openness to travel to new geographies in order to solve major client problems The existing model is analyzed in order to adapt the model to the needs of the management consultants. Compone nt

Recruiting Process Step Involved

Practises

Good practises as per recruiting guide

Candidate Sourcing

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Anticipat e the Need Specify the Job Develop the Pool

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Mapping business demand Planning Optimize supply through various recruitment channels Initial Screening Resume validation Hiring profiles Skill-set Responsibili ty level Location of work Sourcing team evaluation: Deadline Cost Conversion

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Continuous evaluation of talent pool Analysis of future needs Succession plan Sills requirement for organisation Defined demand of job Specified relevant skills Identified team the candidate need to work with Tapped external partners

Additional need for managemen t consulting hire  Larger pool size, that too of industry specialists  Realistic articulatio n of talent needs  Brand appeal to interviewe rs

Lacked as per recruitment guide 

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Relied on generic competen cy model Limited pool Looked for only external candidate s No large pool of candidate s

Candidate Managem ent

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Assess the candidat e Close the Deal

rate metrics  Engaged with candidate throughout the process  Assessment on present evaluation criteria  Three interviews: o HR o Technical o Final  Additional steps on case basis

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Onboarding

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Integrat e the New Comer

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Smooth transition till candidate came on board Building a deeper connection with the candidate Buddy Program Gave information

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Throughout engagement with the candidate Interviewer Feedback involvement Not swayed by extraneous factors Not looked endlessly Not used wrong interviewers Reference checks Structured interviews Well trained, high calibre interviewers Showed commitment to candidate’s success Demonstrated active support for candidate’s interest Involved hiring manager personally, and not only the HR Ensured selected candidate did not continue prospecting for alternative employers. Structured onboard process Multiple touch point with the candidate like phone, e-mail, buddy program

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Focus on highly sophisticat ed skill set (functional skills) More integrity into hiring process Enriched process Few tweaks would not be enough

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No lead time for training To be treated as ‘plug and play’ More cross cultural teaming

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Using a preset evaluation criteria Included too many steps Not included top stakeholde rs in candidate assessme nt Failed to involve Clevel in discussion s Not ensured compensa tion is fair to other employees

Not using veteran top performer s as mentors

to help them become productive Background checks of candidates

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Capabiliti es

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Applied technology to the recruitment process Evaluation metrics: Demand fulfilment Quality of the person hired Cost per person hired Delivery cycle time People hired monthly per recruiter Candidate surveys scores

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Made sure new comer checked regularly with mentor and HR Provided adequate support and monitoring Not treated new hire as a ‘plug and play’ Developed software dashboard Innovated process improvements Broke down the hiring process Evaluation of candidate managers Met the changing need of growing business Offered efficiency and speed with flexibility Not hanging on to bad hires Regularly reviewed recruitment practises

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Develop different evaluation criteria of candidate managers Focus on efficiency more than speed in recruiting Need accurate forecasting for different skill sets

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Not removing bad hires within the first year Not identified and rewarded excellent interviewe rs Not holding assessors accountab le for the quality of their evaluation s

The realization of a robust process maturity framework for internal HR processes to ensure better experience to employees and clients, Accenture adopted the PCMM model. The people capability maturity model’s main objectives were to enhance human capital capabilities so as to influence business outcome. This resulted in a culture of continuous improvement within the workgroup, the unit and the organization. PCMM showed positive impact on business as well as changed the evaluation criteria for tracking the success of a business. It is easy to implement in the place where every employee work together or in a location that operates with consistency every day but it will be quite challenging for the employees who move around to different locations such as in management consulting. However in this case, the challenge is reduced as GTIN does not demand much travel.

Alternatives In their quest to hire 2000 management consultant Accenture can consider the following options a) Developing their existing recruitment model to hire management consulting and taking help from internal network of Accenture As the required skill sets of management consultants is entirely different from earlier talent pool. Accenture needs to modify their existing model which is based on supply chain model. However, it may not have to device a totally new strategy. Accenture can modify the IT strategy to fit the needs of the consulting hiring. As Accenture is a global organization present in 89 countries, it can definitely reach out to its global counterparts to understand the problem better. Moreover, Accenture India can follow the best practices followed by them. Since the recruitment period is not very long. They need to start the process at the soonest. This process might turn out to be costly but it will help Accenture India in developing capability which will be useful for them in future. Thus they need to extract the practices that are applicable to the consulting and apply them accordingly. The structure might not change at all. The execution might change a little. b) Developing/following the standard procedure which is used by other management consulting firms This option might speed up the process of hiring of management consultants which is critical for Accenture to meet. But totally following the competitors might not at all be apt for Accenture. As it has always been a people focused company; thus blindly following the competitors might not be sustainable one. Moreover, the cultural aspect will be totally ignored in that case. c) Standardized hiring process similar to IT Standardization of hiring management consultant is extremely difficult to achieve. As the skill possessed by the consultants differ in greatly. Unlike IT that deals primarily with functional skills, consulting demands skills of differ dimension. Moreover it also demands higher intellectual capital. Thus standardizing the entire process might not be achievable. However some of hiring processes such as interviews (case interviews) can be standardized. d) Outsourcing entire process to third party talent management consulting This option can be chosen under a conservative approach if Accenture feels uncomfortable about scaling up their hiring procedure for 2000 management consultant within a span of 1 year. This method will require high commitment from Accenture and third party for correct hiring, which may create hurdles for the company by increasing the time involved in coordinating among them.

Recommendation

On analyzing the pros and cons of the above alternatives we recommend that Accenture should go with the first option. It is the best alternative available to them and they can also leverage their existing strengths in order to achieve their target. They are already level 5 PCMM certified which will be useful while modifying their existing recruitment procedure. Apart from this it can also take help from its internal network which will bring a huge amount of value addition in the process. Developing in house capability of recruitment will also increase the confidence of various clients of Accenture. In addition to this, they can take help of external recruitment agencies for scouting and attracting the best talent pool for the role. Because achieving all at once including the scale might be extremely difficult to achieve. Once the process is robustly developed they can use the same for future hiring.

Implementation At Accenture one of the first step should be to get away with their image of “IT & BPO off shoring company”, Accenture strategy is one of the coveted firms in the consulting domain they should properly communicate this message. Vehicles used for this would be entirely different from what they used for IT and BPO recruitment. They should focus on selling Accenture as a brand and consulting domain job. Next major steps should be the search of right interviewers who can identify and recommend the potential candidates. Accenture can approach its external talent pool or its clients for this purpose. After this they can target best B- School in the country namely IIM’s and few others who possess the best brains of the country. Apart from this it should also focus on attitude, relevant skills and industry work experience. They might also use employees to spread positive word of mouth regarding the company. _____________________________________