Accenture High-Performance Workforce Study 2006

Download a PDF version of the Executive Summary [PDF, 858KB]

As part of this effort, the Accenture High-Performance Workforce Study examines how the workforce affects the journey to high performance, and, most importantly, what practical steps companies can take.

While many factors influence a company's ability to achieve high performance, perhaps none is more important than the workforce. To be sure, technology, strategy, and innovative new products and services are important. However, the workforce is the critical ingredient that ties it all together, translating ideas and goals into results.

To help organizations understand how leading companies derive more value from their workforces, Accenture regularly surveys hundreds of executives in large corporations and government organizations on workforce management trends and practices. For our latest edition, we polled C-level executives as well as senior HR and learning executives in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany and Australia. These participants represent 251 companies and 40 government organizations.

Our research has provided a wealth of insights on the critical role of the workforce in today's organization. We have learned both about the challenges companies face in building and sustaining a high-performance workforce, as well as the practices that leading organizations employ to help their employees contribute to high performance in the business overall. Our five key findings are as follows:

1. As was the case in the previous edition of this study, companies cited only average performance overall in the 11 areas that they noted as being key to their ability to achieve strong financial performance.
   
   
2. Some workforces clearly are more important than others: namely sales, customer support/service, finance and strategic planning. In addition, the majority of organizations indicated that they have demonstrated a direct, quantifiable correlation between the performance of these workforces and overall financial performance.
   
   
3. There is some evidence that the human resource function is gaining importance in the executive suite, including an increasingly direct line between senior human capital executives and CEOs. Satisfaction with the function varies by title: CFOs were particularly tough on the HR function.
   
   
4. While companies have clear goals for their training functions, performance against those goals is mixed. Overall, the function suffers from low satisfaction and performance ratings, which may explain why so many companies outsource aspects of training.
   
   
5. Leaders—those executives who described their three most important workforces as having the highest possible levels of performance—see the world much differently and embody very different HR and training practices than laggards. In particular, leaders:
   
   
   • Have a more direct, quantifiable correlation between the performance of their top three workforces and overall business performance.
     
     
   • Place more strategic importance on HR.
     
     
   • Are more likely to describe the skill level of their entire workforce as industry leading.
     
     
   • Rely more heavily on metrics such as customer satisfaction and retention levels, the performance of critical business processes, and the strength of the revenue/sales pipeline.

Ellen Balaguer is the global managing director for Accenture Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Services. She has global responsibility of one of the world's largest HR and Learning BPO services providers dedicated to helping organizations achieve high-impact business outcomes through innovative and efficient HR and learning. Most of her 22 years at Accenture have been spent in the Communications, Media and Technology operating group, where she established a strong track record for building new markets, serving and extending client and alliance relationships, and managing large teams. Based in Colorado, she also has served as managing director of Accenture's Microsoft Alliance to help open new and expand existing market opportunities.

Peter Cheese is the managing director of the Accenture Talent & Organization Performance service line. Talent & Organization Performance covers all of the Accenture activities directed at maximizing performance of people in the workplace, including HR processes and operations, learning, knowledge management, performance management, organizational design and management of change. Mr. Cheese, who is based in London, is responsible for the development of Accenture's offerings, capabilities, alliances and assets in this area. He has more than 20 years' experience in consulting and has led a wide range of client projects that have focused on transforming performance through reengineering of capabilities, and implementation of technologies and solutions around HR and learning.

Christian Marchetti, Senior Executive - Accenture, was the managing director of Accenture Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Services, the company's industry-leading global HR outsourcing business, from Sept 2005 to March 2007. An expert in outsourcing and client relationships, he played a leading role in establishing and building Accenture's outsourcing practice in Europe. Based in Paris, Mr. Marchetti also helped shape the landmark finance and accounting BPO relationship between Accenture and Rhodia, one of the world's leading manufacturers of specialty chemicals.