Accenture Helps an International Organization Successfully Manage a Fundamental Change in the Way its Employees Work

Client overview
The client is an international organization that delivers products in the communications and high tech industry. It employs over 100,000 people in more than 60 countries worldwide. The project encompassed three primary areas of change:
Real estate. The client wanted to optimize

Business challenge
The client had issued a strategic directive to achieve an ambitious growth target. To achieve this goal, it needed to position itself as an employer of choice, one at which existing employees would want to remain and would be highly attractive to potential new employees. To this end, it initiated a project to foster innovation in the workplace and become a leading global employer. It recognized that a substantial portion of its employees time was spent working in its offices, communicating with colleagues, customers or business partners and therefore set out to create a work environment that empowered its employees, optimized teamwork and collaboration, energized and supported employee wellbeing. Furthermore, this environment would be underscored by leading practices and technologies, aligned to the business strategic objectives. Simultaneously, the client sought to optimize its infrastructures and offices in order to enhance its efficiency and reduce its costs.

the use of office space and encourage people to work virtually. It envisioned an open-plan office with only a few isolated areas for employees who worked with sensitive data or meetings/conference calls where privacy was required. Unless justified and approved, employees would no longer have a desk or office of their own. Where possible, employees would work virtually and schedule time in the office for occasions where face-to-face contact was required.
Mindset. This new way of working would

require a fundamental change in the mindset of the clients employees.

Technology. The implementation of new IT

tools and solutions to enable and encourage the new way of working envisioned by the client. The client initiated the project in its offices in The Netherlands by modifying the physical office structures to accommodate the new, flexible way of working. Coinciding with this, the infrastructures, processes and tools (for example, Microsoft Office Communicator) to support a collaborative environment were implemented.

As could be expected, this fundamental change to the way of working met with some resistance. To ensure a successful uptake of the project on a global scale with such significant changes to the way in which its employees worked, would be a significant challenge for the client. Accenture has a good relationship with the client based on the successful delivery of prior projects. This, together with its deep global experience and expertise with large-scale change management initiatives as well as its proven tools and methodologies made it a natural choice for the client to team with in this stage of its journey to becoming a high-performance business.

templates (for example, handbooks, quick reference guides and how-to guides) to help the various project teams facilitate the global deployment of the new way of working, including reusable pre-, during- and post implementation guidelines and processes. Built in three months, the toolkit was developed in close collaboration with the client and leading change management professionals from Accenture. The project management team leveraged the clients own leadership to ensure that the change was driven from within and aligned to the clients overall business strategy. Specific sessions |were organized with smaller groups to help the employees understand the ultimate goals of the project and address all their concerns. The team was flexible to help meet specific concerns and requirements, ensuring that all employees were informed, engaged and knew exactly what to expect from the change.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 204,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the worlds most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$21.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2010. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

How Accenture helped

Many of the clients employees resisted the new way of working. Some of this resistance was due to the fundamental change in what they were used to and some was because the employees saw the exercise as purely one of costcutting. They felt that they were forced to adopt new styles of working and were concerned that there would be no place for them at the renovated offices. The client needed Accentures help to turn this resistance around, effectively managing the change and alleviating the employees concerns. The end goal was to become an employer of choice with an innovative, flexible working environment that not only maximized the effectiveness of its workforce, but also ensured the wellbeing of its members. The client needed to be able to successfully deploy this new, flexible way of working to its global operations in the most effective way. To this end, Accenture developed a Change Management Toolkit with a change management methodology to guide the client, its leadership and its employees on the change journey. The toolkit, which leverages Accentures deep experience and global expertise, includes a number of tools and

High performance delivered

Collaborating closely with the client, Accentures change management experts developed a comprehensive change management toolkit in three months. By implementing this toolkit, the client will be well-equipped for the future deployment of the project to its global operations. Not only is the client firmly positioned to optimize the efficiency of its real estate, thereby reducing costs and minimizing its impact on the environment, it is also progressing towards providing a work environment in which its employees can interact in the most productive, inspiring and creative manner. By teaming with Accenture, the client has helped ensure the success of its strategic vision while creating a solid foundation from which to become a high-performance business.

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