MANAGING A GLOBAL WORKFORCE

No job description for any human resources (HR) professional in the services or technology industries should be considered complete without one key qualification: Candidate must be able to adapt to change. While all industries experience evolution and change, technology and services companies tend to be more in flux than most. Whether it’s a new technology trend, a new service model or a new market segment to pursue, innovative executives tend to move quickly and hope the rest of the organisation catches up with them.
Of course, ensuring the rest of the organisation keeps pace with change is often considered an HR responsibility. Organisations that do not perceive HR as a vital, strategic component of their operating model do so at their own peril – it is often through the efforts of HR organisations that vision becomes reality. From ramping up recruiting to support company growth to re-training large portions of the workforce or facilitating a company-wide reorganisation, HR teams are usually at the forefront of change.
Change has certainly been the norm at Accenture since the company’s beginning, and the
global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company is showing no signs of complacency.
Over the last five years, the Accenture has grown from 65,000 employees to more than 110,000. It has evolved from a consulting-focused partnership to a publicly-held company that delivers services through a global model. Over the past several years, Accenture’s high-growth areas have been in services and outsourcing, fueled in large part by the burgeoning pools of talent in markets like India.