Everyday leaders in the workplace

MANILA, Philippines – The race to relevance is all too real.

In the age of digital disruption, one should be agile in learning new skills and shaping success for themselves and their colleagues.

Accenture recently launched a campaign called “Leading In the New,” with videos that highlight how the company is at the forefront of technology and employee development.

Accenture’s employees are striving to make a greater impact within and beyond the walls of their workplace – by thriving in the digital revolution, pursuing their passions, helping fellow members of the LGBT community find empowerment in their true identities, or giving colleagues the opportunity to attain a higher level of performance.  

Using talents unique to each of them, along with a passion to harness the power of digital and technology, they bring something new to the workplace, instilling in themselves and others a sense of purpose.

When risk-taking pays off

Ara Jaingue’s passport induces travel envy – she has already visited 60 cities in 21 countries.

An enthusiastic adventure seeker, some of her most adrenaline-packed exploits include skydiving in Canada, trekking in Borneo’s wild jungles, and swimming with sharks in Hawaii.

She gets a similar rush when taking career risks. By jumping smack-dab into things she feels hesitant about, Ara challenges herself and exceeds her expectations.

At Accenture, Ara works as a management consulting manager, helping clients solve business problems. Her first project was to revamp a company’s digital roadmap to create an efficient experience for its customers with an Omnichannel Strategy.

Ara shares that it’s not always easy, but she believes in educating her clients about embracing change and thinking outside the box.

“It’s about accomplishing more and creating innovative solutions with technology. Technology is just an enabler. What matters most is aligning it to [a] people and process,” she says.

The face of the future

Like any phone-loving millennial, Avielle de Jesus enjoys playing and tinkering with fun apps. As a college student, it had never occurred to her that she’d be working on app development herself after graduating.

She now works with apps on a larger scale. One of her projects at Accenture is Connected Mine, which can be used to access real-time data regarding the status of mine development.

Aside from being the basis of business decisions, this data is used to monitor environmental conditions and the safety of employees in mine sites.

Avs is particularly into new IT. An example is DevOps, which is the collaboration of software developers and IT engineers to create various products and services, some of which are now being utilized for testing and automation.

She attends trainings and brownbag sessions, and encourages her colleagues to do the same.

“There are a lot of new IT trainings that are free and easily accessible. It will make them future-ready,” she adds.

Choosing both passion and paycheck

We’ve all faced a crossroads at some point. For Raina Cheng, it was a dilemma that a lot of millennials face – the choice between one’s passion or a stable job.

With help from her superiors at Accenture, she chose both.

Raina is a member of the company’s analytics team. They create advanced analytics models that can share information real-time, right as transactions are made.

“Analytics is exciting because it’s so dynamic – it provides the perfect solution in this digital age,” she says.

But at one point, Raina wanted to take her career into a different direction. She considered leaving the company to pursue her true passion, writing.

Instead, her supervisors offered her a more challenging role, then advised her to go ahead and just write.

Now, Raina still works at Accenture – and runs a blog to boot.

She says: “Passion is what makes you who you are. If you keep that fire burning within you, you can achieve anything in work and in play.”

Another step forward for the LGBT community

Rica Paras, who has been a solutions architect at Accenture for two years now, is a transgender woman.

As a child, her gender identity was a source of confusion and pain. She hated looking into the mirror and seeing a reflection that felt foreign to her.

She now feels comfortable in her own skin and is proud to show the world her real self. A company which celebrates diversity is therefore a non-negotiable. At Accenture, she and other employees enjoy gender-neutral benefits and a non-conforming dress code.

She shares that at Accenture, she began to find fulfillment in making an impact as a diversity advocate. 

She started gaining recognition as the company’s ASEAN LGBT Lead. She was named by The Financial Times and OUTstanding as the sixth in their list of Top 30 Next Generation LGBT Leaders.

“My story is not just my own. It’s a shared experience about being true to yourself, about being brave, about embracing who you really are,” says Rica.

Creating room for growth

To many, the advent of artificial intelligence or AI is cause for alarm. These machines have the potential to replace the human workforce.

But for Jay Mallen, Service Delivery Operations Manager at Accenture, it foretells a more innovative future.

The latest technologies offer more opportunities for the company’s clients and employees. Better things are in store, but only if one is willing to experiment and try new things.

Jay recounts using Amelia, a virtual agent which they trained for menial help desk processes. Amelia handles 35% of these, which used to take 15 full-time employees.

Since repetitive tasks are out of the way, employees can upgrade their skills with more challenging projects such as analytics, co-innovation, and compliance work for clients.

“That’s what I love about Accenture — the way we invest in new technologies, so we can invest in our people. We constantly experiment to spice things up to help clients, while giving our people new opportunities to learn and grow,” Jay says.

The right mindset for beginners

With her flair for art, Joezel Nubla was a shoo-in for the role of development lead for Accenture’s first SAP HANA model, a high-performance analytic appliance that is used to create data models graphically.

Though she was unfamiliar with the system, Joezel felt confident enough to volunteer to learn it within three months – probably because expressing herself spatially is her forte.

“Painting, drawing, cartoon sketches, this is really what I am passionate about. I get inspired by what I see around me,” she shares.

Notwithstanding the project’s visual appeal, Joezel knew this was a big opportunity for career growth and wanted to prove herself.

Using SAP HANA, she and her team work on technical design and analytics development of a global caliber. Reports are generated within seconds and computations are generated automatically.

Joezel is proud that despite her inexperience, her efforts paid off. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you have the skill. You can always learn it. You just need the right mindset,” she says.

Coupled with a hunger for growth, these individuals enhance their talents not just for themselves and their company, but also for the nation. – Rappler.com