Name: Accenture CEO: Diversity and Inclusion Starts From Within
Uploaded: 2019-01-08
Duration: 6 min 26 s
Description: Accenture North America CEO Julie Sweet outlines steps to build an inclusive work environment.

[ MUSIC ] Julie, you're in charge of workplace development at Accenture and you've set a goal of making sure that Accenture's workplace is equally represented by men and women by the year 2025. 50- 50, how close are you to getting there? Well we're really excited to report that we have 459, 000 people globally, and we're at 42 % women, so we are on track, we are really excited about that. And what about racial diversity, you said you're beginning to work into that area, what are your goals there? Well our goals in racial diversity are really about being inclusive. And so while we are very successful at recruiting, we feel that it's important if you wanna have people be successful that the workplace is inclusive. And so a couple of years ago we began having courageous conversations around race, for example, after the US had a You know a terrible week of incidents. And we felt that we couldn't actually be an inclusive and diverse company unless we were willing to have those conversations. Well you're absolutely right because it's more than just the numbers, isn't it. It's abut inclusion, it's about feeling like you belong and it is empathy. What are you learning from what you're doing at [ UNKNOWN ] right now on this topic? What we are learning is that, as important as the numbers are around diversity- and for many companies that's the first step- if you don't focus on what's happening every day, what it feels like to come to work? Then you won't achieve your goals. And we put out some research last year around culture. And what became clear is that there are real, critical drivers of culture that, yes, are programs. As well as leadership But also, how does it feel to come to work every day? Well it's really interesting that this is the new conversation inside of companies all across America, big and small. CEOs and business leaders are talking more and more about Their responsiblity in dealing with the needs of society and a lot of these social issues and tying it in with their corporate mission. What is your thinking about corporate responsibility with this new definition? Well when we figure out corporate responsibility, we start with our core values. So, what, you know we have our mission is to improve the way the world works and lives and our core values are around respect for the individual and meritocracy, so we think about our core values, about our employees and then about how we have responsibilities to. To effect the communities where we work and live. So we start with those three principles and then we measure ourselves by if we're willing to advocate, are we willing to act and invest? And so that's that formula that helps us decide where we should use our voice. What do your employees want you to do and Accenture to do more? I think our employees are looking for us to both externally and internally represent the values that we say are important. And so, when we talk about internally diversity important being important, they want to see that we are using that voice externally as well. So I understand that you've been talking to a lot of the CEOs and C Suite executives at big fortune 500 companies, about these very issues. What are you telling them whether it's about diversity or some of these other social issues? So what we're telling them is that we're sharing our best practices. And fundementally at Accenture, particularly on inclusion and diversity, we made a decision that inclusion and diversion was a priority. We wanna be an innovation- lead company and we thought it was critical to being innovative. That we be inclusive and diverse. And so we set goals, we have action plans, we measure our progress, and we hold leaders accountable. And our conversation with other CEOs is very much about if you wanna make progress then you have to first decide it's a business priority and then treat it like a business priority. Are you seeing that they are making changes too? Absolutely, I mean there's two great data points. If you go to the Business Roundtable, the top 200 companies in the country, you'll see on our website, I'm on the board there. A big focus on everything companies at the Business Roundtable are doing around inclusion and diversity. On the other hand, we have the CEO action for inclusion and diversity that was started last year. We were one of the first. The founding members that has over 300 Fortune 500 companies that signed up to make commitments around inclusion and diversity. So you're seeing external commitment at an all time high. So how is your job today different than your predecessors? [ INAUDIBLE ] I think the job has changed in that there is an expectation that we will take what has long been our internal and in our core values, and our internal focus, that we will use that experience to help the communities where we work and live. And that's an important value for our employees Place, and so when we're attracting people to Excentra, it matters to them today. That we are a company that sees as part of our mission and part of driving our business, been an advocate in our communities. So are you saying that the thing that's driving this change is expectations from your employees? Maybe expectations from the public? Is it also you getting it from social media? Well, I don't think it's the sole driver. So I start with, what we are doing is very much core to our business. So we're an innovation business. We're a people business. So we advocate and use our voice on inclusion and diversity, which is key to workforce development and innovation. We do it on work force development because we're a company that needs to skill our people, and we do it on technology- led innovation, and so the areas where we have expertise and are using it in our communities are areas that are core to our being able to serve our clients. You know, a lot of what we're talking about is still very new for For many business leaders. It's like a new part of their job. Who are you watching and learning from? Who's a role model for you? You? For me, Bernard Tyson at Kaiser Permanente is a role model, he is driving very successfully, the business of Kaiser Permanente. He's leading from the front in the community using their expertise in health to change communities with respect to homelessness and the well- being of the community. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Accenture CEO: Diversity and Inclusion Starts From Within

Leadership

Accenture North America CEO Julie Sweet outlines steps to build an inclusive work environment.