In 2016, Accenture made what I think was one of our best moves. We showed how serious we are about equality by becoming the first professional services company to publish our U.S. workforce demographic data—by gender, race and ethnicity, persons with disabilities and veterans—and have done so every year since.
This level of transparency holds us accountable year over year. We treat inclusion and diversity like every other business priority, which means we set goals, we have an execution plan, we have accountable leaders, we collect data, and we measure. In 2020, we publicly stated specific, and ambitious, goals to increase the number of African American and Black, and Hispanic American and Latinx people in our workforce and our leadership team.
Momentum to build on
At the end of 2021, we took transparency to a new level. Anyone can go to our 360-degree Value Reporting Experience to see how we achieve value and measure our success across multiple dimensions, including inclusion and diversity, talent, and sustainability, not simply our financial results. We’re shining a lot of light on how far we’ve come and where we need to focus.
I’m pleased to share this year’s workforce demographics report. For me, it shows plenty of signs that reimagining our approach to recruiting, hiring, training, promoting and retaining is working. I also see opportunities to turn our momentum toward areas where we must continue to improve. And here’s a trend that makes me optimistic: More people from diverse communities are choosing to work at Accenture and more are becoming vital voices on our leadership team. Today, 60 percent of our board of directors is racially and ethnically diverse; 50 percent are women. All of our board members, everyone, are true champions of diversity, equity and inclusion.
But representation at all levels of our workforce matters. We set a new goal for the fiscal year 2022: filling 20 percent of our entry-level roles in the U.S. with people from our earn-and-learn Apprenticeship Program, creating a pipeline of talented people from diverse communities. Now, over 60 percent of our candidates are ethnically diverse. One in three are female. And one in four are military veterans and spouses.
Charting our progress
Since we began reporting our data, we've made great strides, including:
- Improving the representation of African American and Black people by 3.9 percentage points overall and 1.5 among executives, and the representation of Hispanic American and Latinx people by 4.3 percentage points overall and 2.1 among executives.
- Increasing the number of Asian American and Asian executives by 3.5 percentage points, despite a decline in representation overall by -7.6 percentage points.
- Growing the number of women by 5 percentage points overall and 2.7 percentage points among executives. Additionally, growing the number of multicultural women to 20.5%, up from 15.6%.
- Giving people an opportunity to voluntarily self-identify as LGBTQ, gender non-binary, people with disabilities and being a part of veteran populations so we can more accurately reflect and effectively support these communities.
- The number of people who self-identify as persons with disabilities grew by three percentage points and now represents 5.9% of our workforce.
- The number of people self-identifying as LGBTQ represents 2.0% of our workforce today.
- The number of military veterans, service members and spouses currently makes up 6.7% of our workforce.
Cultivating a culture of equality
Diversity, equity and inclusion make Accenture —a better place to work and a better partner to our clients and communities. Our progress has a compounding effect, and it’s helping us create an environment that is rich in diverse experiences and unique perspectives.
Jimmy Etheredge
CEO - North America
