ACCENTURE
“Awareness around why an organisation needs to embrace supplier inclusion and diversity is an ongoing problem ”
NEDRA DICKSON MANAGING DIRECTOR , ACCENTURE
beginning to see the benefits of leveraging underrepresented communities .”
Dickson believes that the reason these countries are making progress on diverse supplies chains is because “ they are bringing the issue to the forefront ”. She adds : “ They ' re going in and finding small businesses within underrepresented communities . Then they ’ re finding talent there and are providing training .
“ It ’ s in any country ’ s interests to do the same . With all the disruption we ’ re seeing to workforces at the moment , around staff retention and attraction , it makes good business sense for larger businesses to go into underrepresented communities , for example , to provide training around technical skills .”
Dickson feels Accenture itself has realised that greater flexibility and inclusivity are needed around recruitment .
“ A key change we ’ ve made is to leverage our apprentice programme so that we no longer require entrants to have a four-year university degree . This way , we can train more people and give them the technical skills that are needed to plug the workplace gaps we ' re seeing .”
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