Accenture set to sustain hybrid work setup in Philippines

ACCENTURE, Inc. will keep a hybrid work arrangement in the Philippines, a company official said, as its employees ease into a�� “flexible and omni-connected future of work.”

“We’ve proven that we can do and stay productive without having to go to the office. But we also knew that there are some things that we cannot do from home alone. And so, as we said, our future is going to be a hybrid,” Accenture (Philippines) Country Managing Director Manolito T. Tayag said in a forum led by Makati Business Club.

“And we know that for all industries there are going to be very few who will stay 100% working from home and there are very few who are going to be 100% back to the office,” he added.

Mr. Tayag said the future of work for the information technology and business process management industry and for other industries will be defined by the requirements of their people and clients.

Apart from keeping the hybrid setup, Mr. Tayag cited a need to reimagine workspaces.

“We had to redesign them for more collaboration-focused activities and multi-purpose offices for engagement and this is something we had to make investments on as well,” he added.

He also pointed to enhancing the employee experience in the new setup, which he calls “omni-connectedness” in which Accenture uses new technology including new collaboration tools, the metaverse, and artificial intelligence.

Mr. Tayag said that part of future-proofing work is to invest in employees’ technical and soft skills. “We need to invest in the skills of the future and among them are both technical and soft skills.”

Among the technical skills he cited are cloud computing, data science, analytics, and artificial intelligence.

He also cited the importance of sustainability in future-proofing work, calling it “the new digital.”

“It is important to champion sustainability. Just as in the past, we said that every business is a digital business, moving forward every business is a sustainable business,” Mr. Tayag said.

“[In Accenture], we use the larger umbrella of sustainability which will include many areas beyond the environment. It includes, in fact, many of the sustainable goals of the United Nations,” he added.

Among Accenture’s sustainability efforts are a net-zero path, accelerating equality in terms of inclusion and diversity programs, and embedding sustainability services.

Mr. Tayag said that he believes that the industry will continue to have the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands more jobs in the next five to six years.

“And as we create these quality jobs, we will continue to remain a pillar of the Philippine industry,” he added.

Quoting Accenture’s Chief Executive Officer Julie Therese Sweet, Mr. Tayag said that “in order to be a great place to work, [we need to] have access to clients in the industry and we have to be creator of talents through investments and technology.”

“And that is the way so that we will continue to be able to not only survive but to thrive and be successful and grow in the future and become a major player in the Philippine economy,” Mr. Tayag added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile