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MANILA, Philippines – New entrants into the workforce are entering a digital world, where human-machine collaboration is increasingly becoming the norm, continuous education is essential, and a mindset of willingness to embrace innovation is required.
This was the main discussion at the first-ever Accenture Student Congress held on April 14, 2018 at the Novotel Hotel in Quezon City.
More than 150 students from top universities in Metro Manila and Ilocos gathered to hear Accenture’s top executives talk about the power of human ingenuity, the strong potential of the digitally-inclined youth to make a change, and the workforce of the future.
Future-proof skills needed to survive the digital age
In the digital age where change is fast and constant, relying on different forms of modern tech to do most jobs has now become the norm.
But to remain relevant and thrive in this setup, one needs to develop “future-proof” human skills with creativity, entrepreneurship, and collaboration at the core.
Anyone who wishes to join Accenture needs to have a natural curiosity, genuine interest, and excitement for learning as well as improving processes.
“There’s always something new to learn and if you just have the fundamentals and innate curiosity, it’s an amazing place to be,” said Chris Murphy, Accenture Operations Infrastructure Services Lead. “There’s always something to challenge you and to take you to the next level.”
Building soft and technical skills with Accenture
At Accenture, employees are given the opportunity to marry these soft skills with their respective highly specialized and technical skills as they help worldwide clients achieve superior business outcomes by optimizing business operations.
At the sidelines of the event, Sean Riley, Managing Director of Accenture Operations Business Process Services (BPS), told Rappler that holding the Student Congress gives them the opportunity to engage students and fresh graduates who practically grew up with digital technology.
“Having people that are excited to embrace new technologies and ‘work in the New’ is a critical success factor for us. That’s why we’re here today.
“It’s something that we always talk about – from when you first start and get trained, and then there’s re-training and rescaling as we go. For me, it makes an exciting, great place to learn, grow, and build your career,” Riley said.
Accenture, as told by Accenture’s best
More Accenture leaders and select employees also took the stage to talk about the different divisions and functions of Accenture Operations, particularly Analytics, Cloud, and Robotics Process Automation.
Many of them also shared their respective personal experiences working for the company as they went along.
The goals were to encourage the future workforce to challenge perceptions, open their minds to endless possibilities, and to do more by taking action and using skills to solve real-life business challenges.
Aside from talks and Q&A forums, students were also put to the test by having them work in groups to solve a giant board game organized by Breakout Manila, which tasked them to solve several puzzles under time pressure.
A guided Innovation Tour was also held to demonstrate how the future workforce will manage business operations using Analytics, Applied Intelligence, and Cloud, with Accenture employees themselves sharing their own stories with the students.
The Student Congress was capped off with an awarding ceremony that recognized group and individual participants who stood out and made their marks among their peers.
If there’s one thing that all speakers emphasized during the day-long event, it’s that people play the most important role in Accenture.
“For us, the only asset that we have are the people that work for Accenture. The nature of our work is that our clients come to us with the most difficult challenges they cannot solve themselves, which means that we need to make sure that our people are cutting edge,” Jacob Dalevi Artelius, HR Managing Director of Accenture Philippines, said.
He added that the company actively invests in learning and development for its employees around the world.
“That’s how committed we are to our people and in nurturing talent through our robust training and development programs,” he said.
Accenture Philippines was established in 1985, offering consulting work. Currently, there are over 45,000 employees in its facilities across Metro Manila, Ilocos, and Cebu.
To find out more about the different work opportunities available at Accenture, visit their Careers page. – Rappler.com
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