Company: Accenture, Chicago, Illinois
Company Description: Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With 178,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$19.70 billion.
Nomination Category: Human Resources Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Human Resources Department/Organization

Nomination Title: Accenture Training and Development Team

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

          Accenture is growing rapidly.  In the past fiscal year, Accenture hired
          approximately 75,000 new employees in 48 countries.  Our challenge was to
          successfully integrate over 200 new people every day into our culture so we
          created the New Joiner Program.  This program ensured that our newly hired
          people had access to the resources they needed to be successful.  To do this,
          the program had to:
          • Be flexible enough to accommodate between four to 250 individuals at once
          • Ensure global relevance and local authenticity
          • Provide consistent messages ensuring all new joiners understand Accenture’s
          employee value proposition
          • Be performance-based and grounded in the context of our core values

          In the past year, we re-engineered our two-day New Joiner Orientation program
          around the six core values of the organization.  It focuses on the voices of
          Accenture executives in person or via video, sharing their personal stories
          about how they are living our core values.  This allows our new joiners to
          begin to immediately emulate those behaviors, to contribute, and to quickly
          become a part of our culture.  Our tools, knowledge management, learning, and
          traditional orientation topics are woven throughout the context of the core
          values.  We have captured the stories of over 150 executives.  These can then
          be used by any office anywhere in the world. They also fuel our core value
          of “One Global Network.”  We also send digital stories or “mini movies” to new
          joiners every month of their first year to help them further understand what it
          is like to work at Accenture and to reinforce the core values over time.  The
          New Joiner Orientation is taught by local employees at all levels so that
          participants can learn about the organization’s core values in action in their
          own cultural context.  This is augmented by a huge library of videos
          contributed by successful employees from all over the world.

          Results:
          • The content is delivered more consistently, leading to globally uniform
          messages across geographies and workforces and a common understanding of our
          culture across all new joiners.  It is more relevant to each of the 48
          countries where, before, the larger geographies had dominated the content and
          context of the core message.
          • New Joiner enculturation scores have continued to hold strong at 4.3 out of 5
          since the program has been running.
          • Overall satisfaction with the program has increased by 6%.
          • 75,000 new joiners have been added to the organization, an overall increase
          in our employee population of 21.5%, with virtually no change in the employee
          attrition rate.

          Finally, as part of the continuing Accenture Education Experience, Accenture
          worked with MIT Professional Education Programs in the past year to design,
          develop, and release a two-tier certification program targeted at the first
          three levels of our career pyramid.  The Solutions Delivery Academy is the
          largest initiative ever undertaken by MIT's Professional Education Programs
          Office (PEP) - open to an estimated 32,000 in 2008.  Over 16,000 employees
          across 38 countries are actively pursuing this certification.

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

          Sites and articles specifically about our New Joiner program and the new joiner
          experience:

          New Joiner Website – The front page to our New Joiner Portal (Note that this
          link opens a file containing the original data from our proprietary website):
          http://homepage.mac.com/bobbyhollywood/.cv/bobbyhollywood/Sites/.Public/Accenture
/ABA%20Archived%20Sites/New%20Joiner%20Website.mht-zip.zip

          The Source article – Describes how New Joiner Orientation fits into the
          enculturation process for our outsourcing practice (Note that this link opens a
          file containing the original data from our proprietary website):
          http://homepage.mac.com/bobbyhollywood/.cv/bobbyhollywood/Sites/.Public/Accenture/
ABA%20Archived%20Sites/DCN%20BPO%20Culture%20in%20Action%20Program.mht-zip.zip

          Accenture Portal article – Describes human capital programs, including new
          joiner onboarding in China (Note that this link opens a file containing the
          original data from our proprietary website):
          http://homepage.mac.com/bobbyhollywood/.cv/bobbyhollywood/Sites/.Public/Accenture/
ABA%20Archived%20Sites/Human%20Capital%20Programs%20in%20Greater%20China.mht-zip.zip

          Boston College article – Spotlights enculturation emphasis in New Joiner
          Program:
          http://www.bcccc.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/Page.viewPage/pageId/1477

          Accenture Digital Forum articles – Discusses our #8 ranking on Business
          Week’s “Best Places To Launch a Career” list, and our placement on the Best
          Companies To Work for in Ireland list:
          http://www.digitalforum.accenture.com/DigitalForum/Global/ViewByTopic/TechnologyCareers/
0710_Business_Week_List.htm
          http://www.digitalforum.accenture.com/DigitalForum/Global/ViewByTopic/TechnologyCareers/
0703_Acc_ranks_one_Ireland_best_work.htm

          Sites about Accenture in general:
          Fortune magazine articles – Demonstrate Accenture’s strength in IT services and
          People Management:
          http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2008/snapshots/11019.html  
          http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2008/best_worst/best2.html  

          Sites and articles demonstrating our core values and culture in action:
          Accenture Portal article – Describes corporate citizenship opportunities in the
          United States (Note that this link opens a file containing the original data
          from our proprietary website):
          http://homepage.mac.com/bobbyhollywood/.cv/bobbyhollywood/Sites/.Public/Accenture/
ABA%20Archived%20Sites/Realizing%20potential%2C%20sharing%20value%20help%20us
%20make%20a%20difference%20in%20our%20community.mht-zip.zip

          Accenture Portal article – Discusses impact of New Joiner Orientation
          and “leaders teaching leaders” philosophy in the Philippines (Note that this
          link opens a file containing the original data from our proprietary website):
          http://homepage.mac.com/bobbyhollywood/.cv/bobbyhollywood/Sites/.Public/Accenture/
ABA%20Archived%20Sites/Core%20Values%20in%20Action%20Sherwin%20Pelayo%20ke
eps%20colleagues%20connected%20and%20inspired%20through%20communication%20
and%20service.mht-zip.zip

          Sites and articles about our “Return on Learning” book:
          Amazon.com – Product page for “Return on Learning”
          http://www.amazon.com/Return-Learning-Training-Performance-Accenture/dp/1932841
180/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209398198&sr=8-1

          Accenture Outlook article – Overview of Accenture’s learning transformation
          story:
          http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Outlook/By_Subject/Human_
Resource_Mgmt/GeneratingBusinessImpact.htm

          Sites and articles about the Accenture Solutions Delivery Academy:
          http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/accenture.html
          http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/may/18acc.htm
          http://www.hindu.com/2007/05/18/stories/2007051801001800.htm

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of this nominated organization/department:

          Don Vanthournout is Accenture’s Chief Learning Officer.  He is in charge of a
          multiple-award winning Training and Development Team responsible for the
          learning and knowledge management needs of 175,000 employees located in 48
          countries.  Don is an author of Return on Learning: Training for High
          Performance at Accenture which tells the story of how he and his team re-
          engineered the training organization to deliver more and better training for
          less cost.  It also illustrates how, for every dollar spent on training,
          Accenture receives an ROI of 353%.