Accenture spends $1 billion on reskilling employees: CEO

BENGALURU: Accenture CEOJulie Sweet has said the company spends $1 billion on reskilling its people for professional development. “We do massive reskilling. We invest $1 billion a year and millions of training hours. All of this is a part of our commitment to sustainability. This is how we operate and we are doing this for many years now,” Sweet said at the Nasscom Technology & Leadership Forum 2021 on Friday.
Sweet said sustainable businesses have unlocked opportunities for constantly reskilling employees even as organisations are becoming more agile. Accenture has extended its reskilling efforts to its clients too. US consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, for instance, announced that they were creating 1,000 new jobs in technology. “And they’re working with us to make sure that a big percentage — about 30% — are diverse,” she said.
Accenture’s 2020 annual report showed that it increased training hours by 6%, while reducing training costs by 11% to $866 million with its digital learning platforms. Since March last year, in its technology services alone, it has trained over 70,000 people in the hot-skills needed by its clients, including cloud and remote collaboration tools. Accenture has over 5 lakh employees and India has two lakh of these.
Accenture said it plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2025 and make actual reductions by powering offices with 100% renewable energy, engaging key suppliers to reduce emissions and equipping employees to make climate-smart travel decisions. By 2025, Accenture will reuse or recycle 100% of e-waste.