by Ellyn Shook
“What’s important to you?” is a question that cannot be answered in the C-suite. Management teams need to hear directly from their people about what makes them happy at work. As a CHRO in a talent-led business, dialing up innovation to attract, inspire and retain high performers is a top priority for me. It is about finding that “sweet spot” of skills and specialization to exceed clients’ needs, while providing compelling employee experiences that make your company a top employer of choice. In the war for talent, focusing on the business need is only part of the talent equation. We must find out what our people need — and re-imagine the employee experience accordingly. In a business as large as Accenture, with employees in 56 countries and 200+ cities around the globe, that’s no small feat.
The solution came unexpectedly. I recently visited Quirky, coined the “invention mob” by The NY Times, whose goal is to make invention accessible by enlisting the help and ideas of a community of 1,000+ inventors. In that same NY Times article, Quirky founder and CEO Ben Kaufman talked about the power of seeing “a community of passionate people work together to create and invent the future.” My visit to Quirky was pivotal. Since our goal was to leverage the wisdom of the crowd to truly innovate, why couldn’t we apply that approach to improving career opportunities for current and future Accenture employees?
Harnessing the Crowd…
Famous for its ability to collect intelligence, services and funds, crowdsourcing provided us with unexpectedly rich information. We learned, for instance, that challenging work was a one of the highest priorities, even above compensation. By crowdsourcing, we gave power to the voices of our own people and our external talent network to enhance our employee brand.
Since two-thirds of our workforce are Millennials, the “how” was as important as the what. In our quest to digitize HR and create a consumer-like mobile experience for our people, we knew it was important to leverage technology and social media. Crowdsourcing enabled us democratize the experience by inviting every employee to the conversation with remarkable speed and ease.
But, an internal view wasn’t enough. To make sure we had a foot in today and a foot in tomorrow, we extended the invitation to our future talent through our pipeline of prospective candidates in the Accenture Talent Connection and through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This ensured we were building a rich and relevant employee experience for the future.
Our Approach…
It was important to start with the “why” and draw a clear line of sight between our business strategy and the ideal employee experience. To get the best result, we connected “why it’s good for the company and why it’s good for me.”
We hosted nine online internal crowd sourced events and one online external event over a four-week period. During the events, we challenged people to tell us what it would take to truly delight them…so they could, in turn, delight their clients. Discussion streams focused on key elements of the employee value proposition: people and leadership; rewards and career opportunities; work environment and culture; and learning and personal growth.
We posed thought provoking questions to encourage out of the box thinking. And, business leaders were active champions throughout, encouraging people to participate and committing to action. Participants were prompted to share “big ideas” related to each of the discussion streams to help bring the employee value propositions to life, signaling behavior change.
The Results…
Crowdsourcing worked. We met our goal to reimagine five very distinct and relevant employee experiences for each part of our business that reflect what our existing and future talent values most and, that align with our business strategy.
But most important was hearing from our people, in their own voices, about what they value in a career experience. If we had tried to solve this in the C-Suite, we wouldn’t have learned that it’s not always about the money — that challenging work is equally or more important. And, they are motivated that the work they do really changes the way the world works and lives — giving them a compelling sense of purpose. People also shared insights about wanting multiple careers within Accenture and taking great pride in our diversity. The crowdsourcing process culminated with five employees joining the Global Management Committee to represent the collective input of their peers and have a deeper conversation with top leaders about ways to bring the new employee experiences to life.
Looking back… A few things stand out…
- As with any change effort, business champions are key. Their visible support, participation and excitement set the tone.
- You need clear and thought provoking questions to guide the crowd sourced conversation to ensure you get the information you’re seeking.
- Democratize the experience…focus groups only hit a small percentage and surveys lack a collaborative element. Crowdsourcing lets everyone participate and build on each other’s ideas.
- Keep an eye on tomorrow…invite your potential future employees to ensure you remain relevant and attractive to those important stakeholders.
Upon reflection, this isn’t just about the employee value proposition, it’s also about engagement. Giving our people an amplifier for their voices was a strong positive step to further capture their hearts and minds. Crowdsourcing is yet another tool we can use to connect with our people, find out what matters to them, and capture their brightest ideas.
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Ellyn Shook is Accenture’s chief human resources officer, responsible for the company’s talent strategies and programs. In this role she leads a global team of human resources professionals responsible for recruiting, learning and development, compensation, benefits, equity programs, engagement and retention, and employee relations. She is also a member of Accenture’s Global Management Committee.
Prior to assuming her current role in March 2014, Ms. Shook was senior managing director—Human Resources and head of Accenture’s Human Resources Centers of Expertise. In this position, she was responsible for the design of Accenture’s talent architecture, as well as for the company’s total rewards, talent supply chain and talent development programs and processes. In addition, she led the human resources teams responsible for the company’s operating groups and growth platforms.