Human Resource Management

Assignment Submission

Accenture War for Talent in India Case Analysis

Section B (Group 6)

Swati Gugnani (2015PGP391)

Neha Agarwal (2015PGP221)
Vidya V (2015PGP422)
Kunal Sinha (2015PGP182)
Rukul Vijaya Suresh Kumar (2015PGP315)
Niswarth Sinha (2012IPM070)
Gundrajukuppam Abhilash (2015PGP136)
How is recruitment of management consultants different from that of IT
professionals and BPO employees?

Since management consulting is a very different field from IT and BPO

industries, Accenture cannot employ its present model in its truly current
form to go ahead and recruit 2000 people for its urgent business need in
India. Even though the number is not very high, getting quality applicants for
the roles might be a little difficult.
It would have to re-engineer its brand around management consulting
because it has done its major work in India only in IT services and BPO and
thus, people have the perception that it is an IT focussed company.
Because of growth in offshoring, the competition for Indias scarce talent was
intensifying and to take away a big share of this pie, it would have to mould
its HR practices and models.
Management consulting is not a readily scalable business because the level
of sophistication of skills required.
Also Accenture wanted to avoid the offshoring label, previously associated
with its other businesses, so as to recruit better talent from the country.
Consulting projects were inherently different from IT projects in terms of
project durations and lead times.

What capabilities of the current HR model employed by Accenture can

supplement the recruitment process of consultants?
The current model had an innovative approach of using the supply chain principles
to recruiting which differed in terms of having a high human touch in recruiting
qualified candidates to meet the demand on time.

Candidate sourcing: This involved mapping business demand to market

intelligence, managing various recruitment channels and screening of
resumes
Candidate management: Take on board the shortlisted candidates as early
as possible and being in constant communication with them throughout the
recruitment cycle. This involved three phases of interviews: one with the HR
representative, an interview to assess the technical skills and a final
interview. This method of detailed analysis is required to zero in on a talented
consultant whose skill set is more sophisticated.
On-boarding: Ensure smooth transition to the firm from the time of
acceptance of the offer letter and retain them. The firm also had to conduct
background checks on the work experience, education, etc. of the
candidates.
Capabilities: Evaluate recruitment process performance by tracking
multiple metrics like cost of person and quality of person. The team also
developed a software dashboard that simplified the recruitment process to
track the progress against targets.

In what areas does the HR model fall short?

Consulting required people to be recruited from different functional areas of

specialization

Different recruitment resources required as internet job portals and print

advertisements could not be used to attract this type of talent to the
organization.
Because of the operationalization of the HR process, the company would
have to ensure that this model is modified to become a high human touch
process.
Positioning the company attractively would be a challenge that would have
to be met in order to compete with aggressive competitors to get people on
board.

What should Accenture do in this regard? We can look at this aspect through
the following 1. Candidate Sourcing
Accenture should continue to perform this process as it has been doing
in the past, but with a special emphasis on developing the job
description and job specification since it would play a key role in
recruitment of consultants.
It cannot, however, use the sources it has used in the past and should
thus tap other resources like head-hunters, placement consultancies,
etc. It could also tap other networks and external partners like
partnering with premier business schools, asking candidates peers for
nomination, etc.
The resume screening should be done more thoroughly to save on
costs associated with recruitment.
It should conduct ongoing, proactive analysis of future needs along
with continually evaluating the pool of potential talent.
2. Candidate Management
Accenture should continue its practice of conducting extensive
interviews, but for recruiting consultants, it should further intensify its
efforts in this regard and focus on the highly sophisticated skill sets
required to ensure a rich process.
It should involve top level, C-suite executives in the process so that
they make sure that they are an essential cultural fit, apart from being
having strong career credentials.
It should engage the best interviewers in the organization that would
also help in reinstating the companys commitment to candidates
success.
The HR should now focus more on focussing on the efficiency of the
process, rather than the speed of the process.
3. On-boarding This function assumes an even greater role in case of
recruitment of consultants, as employees with high skills sets are more prone
to defection, or leaving the organization in a short span of time.
The manager and HR executive of the new recruit should make
him/her feel at peace by regularly checking in with the employee
about how things are going, even when no problems have arisen. This
would be essential to make the employee at ease with the company.

Such practices would help in integrating the new employees with the
culture of the company. For this, they should continue with their buddy
program - using veteran top performers as mentors.
This process is incidental to make the process high human touch, by
ensuring multiple touch points for the candidates
4. Capabilities
In intensifying the process to meet the new needs the HR department
should ensure that it maintains its performance on the metrics defined
under the current model; that is the recruitment costs should be
controlled.
Modify the software dashboard since the process would now require
more intensive and numbered interviews.
Audit and review of HR practices would help in identifying and
rewarding excellent interviewers.
This would also help in holding all assessors accountable for the
quality of the evaluation.