Every member of the Consulting workforce is aligned with one of three consulting workgroups: Management Consulting, Systems Integration Consulting, or Technology Consulting. Professionals with specialized knowledge are highly valued. Our consulting group structure provides outstanding opportunities to develop highly specialized skills that will help you advance in your career.
At Accenture we hire the best people and then we help them get even better. Whether it’s for the next project, a promotion or general professional development, our training is designed to prepare our staff for the next stage in their career.
Training is not just something our people do when they first join the company. We offer around 80 percent more training hours than our competitors and make constant investments in our employees’ development to keep them at the top of their games. In 2006 we invested nearly $700 million in training/professional development and provided an average of 75 hours of training per person.
Our training programs are tailored to individual needs, and the courses people take depend on their skills, experience and areas of interest. Training is conducted in a variety of ways, from classrooms to the Web. Our people have the opportunity to learn from and be coached by the best in the business – supportive leaders and colleagues who can pass on their industry, technical and functional expertise. We use a well-managed combination of courses, practical experience on client engagements and feedback to enable our people to develop specialist skills which help them grow.
New-joiner Orientation and Training New joiners spend their first week in orientation, becoming familiar with Accenture’s business operations, our culture and how we manage our work and create solutions. You’ll be aware of the tools and knowledge assets, along with levels of accountability, authority and responsibility. Plus you’ll have started up valuable relationships with colleagues at all levels.
All of our consulting people need to understand the full spectrum of work we undertake on consulting engagements, so your next two weeks of training are dedicated to developing business, industry and technology skills. Then we will get you ready for your first assignment. This could involve additional training, depending on your location, the nature of the assignment and your needs as an individual.
Continuous Learning: On-the-job and formal training We want our people to achieve their goals while building the knowledge and expertise to help our clients become high-performance businesses. We offer a variety of formal and informal training programs at every level to help you acquire and build specialized skills faster. So, as you progress, you will have the opportunity to master a core curriculum at each stage of development, so as to be promoted to the next career level.
The curriculum will vary, depending on your level, industry group and specialization, but it will involve developing a portfolio of business, technology and industry expertise, together with professional skills such as communication, business acumen and selling. You’ll also have opportunities to hone your functional skills and expertise in your area of specialization.
We take a great interest in how your career develops and we will give you direction to make sure you are building the right skills in the right areas. You’ll get regular assessment with appropriate criteria for your consulting group and specialty, plus access to a career counselor. At the same time, you’ll be expected to share responsibility for your career development by selecting training courses, by using our electronic systems to search for potential client/role matches, and by updating your consulting résumé to reflect your availability for assignments.
Careers are highly individual, and career success can be defined and achieved in many different ways. We enable our strongest performers to shape their careers, while developing the talent we need to help our clients become high-performance businesses. And in a company the size of Accenture, you will find opportunities to accelerate your career beyond what could be achieved with many other employers.
Our performance management and professional development systems are based strictly on merit—success will lead to rewards and progress. There is a defined career path for the Consulting workforce with the following levels: