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Accenture CEO: Companies lag on gender diversity because they see 'an HR issue as opposed to a business issue’

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet joins 'Influencers with Andy Serwer' to discuss equality in the workplace.

Video transcript

- --creating equality for women in the workplace. You'd have said that it isn't rocket science. Science, excuse me. So why aren't we making more progress, then?

JULIE SWEET: Because there's a difference between a commitment, and being committed, and an action plan. And so, what we find is that it's not about a lack of good intention. But the goals that need to be set are not always set in the same way that you set your revenue goals and that, too often, companies-- and many companies come to us to talk about what to change-- say that this is somehow an HR issue, as opposed to a business issue which we all own.

And again, this is a place where, while we're not making the progress that we'd like to make-- and, frankly, the pandemic set us back because of the very public issues and challenges of women-- I am much more optimistic about not only the commitment across the globe, and we're in every market, but also the willingness to take actions. And we have a lot, a lot of people. We don't do this as a business. But we do this as a partner because we believe that we will all make progress in inclusion and diversity by working together. And it's actually a core part of our strategy. We call it "360-degree value," is to collaborate with our clients, like joint employee resource groups, activities, because we think it's a shared responsibility.

- Yeah, and I think your 2020 diversity report shows a drop-off of women and minorities in the workplace, overall, right? Is that because of the pandemic?

JULIE SWEET: Well, it really varies by industry. Obviously, just to be clear, not at Accenture, right?

- Right, it's an overall.

JULIE SWEET: So, Yeah, so our overall workforce.

- Yeah, to be clear.

JULIE SWEET: Right.

- Right.

JULIE SWEET: Because I want to be clear that we have made progress across both women and ethnic minorities. And that, I think, is important because the way we've done that is by setting goals. They're now public, both for women and racial minorities in the US, the UK, and South Africa. And then having action plans and adjusting it. Now, when you look at it overall, it varies by industry. It's hard to look at it only globally because in some industries hit by the pandemic, you had a higher percentage of women. And then, in other industries, it's more about the lack of child care and so on.

So we understand, I think, pretty well, how the pandemic has hit. And now it's up to us. A great example is I'm the chair of Catalyst and some of our board members who, in the US-- it's a US organization around women. Some of our board members who have big manufacturing plants are talking about how they're super focused on making sure that they have diversity in manufacturing. It's such a great focus area and not one that we've had. So, a lot of work to do, but I do believe there's a lot of commitment to action.