Accenture chief Julia Sweet lays out conditions for promotion, warns of job loss: ‘If you want to get promoted…’
As companies around the world increasingly integrate AI into their daily operations, consulting firm Accenture is making AI proficiency a prerequisite for moving up the career ladder; This shows that those who do not want to adapt may not have a place in the company.
In a recent episode of the “Quick Response” podcast, Accenture chief Julie Sweet said employees should embrace the company’s AI tools to move up the ranks. “If you want to get promoted, you have to do the same things we do to run Accenture,” he said.
In September last year, the company announced a “six-month optimization program” with an investment of $865 million. The initiative aims to realign its workforce and operations in line with the growing demand for digital and artificial intelligence services.
Accenture’s aggressive artificial intelligence move
The large-scale reskilling effort is part of Accenture’s three-year, $3 billion plan announced in 2023; initial embedding of artificial intelligence into its operations. A key goal of the program is to double the company’s AI talent to 80,000 professionals through recruitment, acquisition and training. The consultancy currently employs more than 770,000 people worldwide, according to Fortune.
“These are the new tools needed to run a company,” he said, adding that change doesn’t happen overnight. “We didn’t go from zero to ‘you won’t get a promotion’ in a month.
Instead, the transition took place over a three-year period in which the company focused on familiarizing employees with the technology, ensuring it was user-friendly, and creating the right digital workbench. Once all of that was achieved, he said, “Hey, this is Accenture and this is how we work.”
Sweet explains why AI skills matter
According to Sweet, integrating artificial intelligence into the workplace is a natural progression in the evolution of technology in the workplace. Accenture’s CEO compared the current push to learn AI tools to when computers first became a major part of offices.
“Nobody would say asking someone to use a computer is pressure,” Sweet said. “This is how companies used to do business. Today at Accenture, AI is the way we work.”
He also gave advice to companies. “I think we taught a good lesson on something I advise CEOs on: You really have to be willing to restructure your company’s infrastructure to capture the opportunity with AI,” Sweet said.
But he acknowledged that the transition at Accenture was not easy. He said that employees initially encountered obstacles in adapting to new tools, adding that embracing this change required changes in both the workforce and the company’s traditional ways of doing business.
“It was difficult for our employees and our customers,” Sweet said. “How do you have the courage to do this? That’s where you’re humble, but it’s also the idea of embracing change and innovation.”
