Report: Accenture's Strategies for Gender and LGBTQ+ Inclusion

This report provides an overview and critical analysis of Accenture's diversity and inclusion initiatives. The report begins with a personal introduction and an overview of Accenture as a multi-industry firm, highlighting its commitment to cultural and social responsibility. It then focuses on the forms of diversity, particularly gender equality and the LGBTQ+ community, detailing specific initiatives such as gender balance targets, hiring statistics, and awareness programs. The report critiques the firm's approach, specifically the separation of gender equality and LGBTQ+ initiatives, and offers recommendations for improvement, including integrating LGBTQ+ issues into the gender equality agenda and prioritizing workplace equality initiatives. The report concludes with a reference list of sources used in the analysis.

Cultural diversity

Personal introduction

Overview of firm
Accenture
Australia based multi industry based firm
Associated with industries like health, software, travel,
energy, automotive, banking, retail, insurance, high tech,
public services (Accenture, 2019)
Has an international level of partnership
One of the most admired companies by the Fortune
throughout the past 17 years
Ranked one in the list of 20 sustainable global organizations
identified by Barron (Accenture, 2019)

Why this firm?
Culturally and socially responsible
Main vision of this firm is innovation
Equality is the key to their innovation and success
Among the top 50 organizations that work for maintaining
diversity in the workplace (Accenture, 2019)
Valuing and respecting the individuals and not only the
teams
Integrity firmly employed by the leaders
Inclusion and diversity are included in their core values

Form of diversity
Gender equality
Gender equality as one form of diversity that this firm has
taken care of
Diversity can highly impact their productivity and their
performance (Accenture, 2019)
Same amount of diversity while dealing with their clients

Diversity initiatives
Gender balance in all their workplaces over the world on a 50-50
level (Singh, 2018)
Hiring 47% women candidates as their new joiners
38% positions in the revenue generating area have been led by
women
37% of workforce in the IT and engineering department has been
captured by women (Accenture, 2019)
32% managing directors are women
43% international workforce has been occupied by women
Empowerment of women is synonymous to empowerment of the
whole organization
38% promotions have been achieved by women

LGBTQ community
Stands with the empowerment of this community with
pride
Several awareness programs through their team of
PrideAtACcenture ANZ (Accenture, 2019)
Got the inspire award from Sapphire.

Critique of initiatives
Firm separates gender equality initiatives and initiatives
for LGBTQ
Lacks the knowledge that the concern for any
marginalised community fall under the gender equality
agenda
A lot of capital has been invested by the firm to establish
these agendas (Australia Post, 2019)

Recommendations
Need to include the LGBTQ issue in the gender equality
agenda
Need to invest less and use more innovation in order to
balance sustainability and diversity initiatives (Vohra et al.
2015)
Need to favour workplace equality initiatives over
didactic promotions of gender equality.

Reference list
Accenture 2019, About Accenture, Available at: https://www.accenture.com/au-en/about/company-
index [Accessed on: 16/9/2019]
Accenture 2019, Creating a culture of equality in the workplace, Available at:
https://www.accenture.com/nl-en/about/inclusion-diversity/gender-equality [Accessed on:
16/9/2019]
Accenture 2019, Our commitment to inclusion & diversity, Available at:
https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/inclusion-diversity-index [Accessed on: 16/9/2019]
Australia Post 2019, Why companies should aim for inclusivity, not just diversity, The guardian
Labs, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-post-building-a-sustainable-future/
2019/aug/27/why-companies-should-aim-for-inclusivity-not-just-diversity [Accessed on:
16/9/2019]
Singh, S., 2018, Gender equality, still a startup at technology companies, The Economic Times,
Available at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/gender-equality-still-a-startup-at-
technology-companies/articleshow/62924787.cms?from=mdr [Accessed on: 16/9/2019]
Vohra, N., Chari, V., Mathur, P., Sudarshan, P., Verma, N., Mathur, N., Thakur, P., Chopra, T.,
Srivastava, Y., Gupta, S. and Dasmahapatra, V., 2015. Inclusive workplaces: Lessons from theory
and practice. Vikalpa, 40(3), pp.324-362.

Thank You