International management consultancy Accenture is to expand its pro bono activities.
The
company’s business units in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the UK
will be among the first to adopt a more formalized pro bono programme
this September.
‘We’ve been involved in pro bono work for
years, but this move shows our commitment to managing it in a more
systematic and efficient manner,’ said Heidi Strawson, director of
programmes in Accenture’s corporate citizenship unit.
Under the
worldwide scheme, pro bono work will be scheduled in the same way as
other client work and participating employees paid and appraised as for
chargeable projects, with the company subsidizing the costs.
The programme is open only to consulting staff and builds on existing formal programmes in Australia, Brazil and France.
In
a recent pro bono pilot involving Accenture’s US division and the US
youth education charity Junior Achievement, the business donated the
equivalent of one per cent of its total chargeable hours. A similar
programme in Spain resulted in the donation of 140,000 hours to 37
non-governmental organizations.
Strawson claims that offering
pro bono work improves staff morale and retention – although this is
not formally corroborated – and appeals to high-performing graduates
who want the opportunity to volunteer without sacrificing the safety
net of a corporate job.
Allied to Accenture’s pro bono project
is its partnership with international volunteering charity Voluntary
Service Overseas. As a founding partner of VSO’s Business Partnership
scheme, the company allows staff to take unpaid leave for up to one
year to volunteer overseas. Accenture is discussing with VSO the
possibility of shorter-term volunteering opportunities for senior
executives.
In a separate volunteering scheme, Accenture
employees work as consultants for non-profit groups in developing
countries. The independently-run Accenture Development Partnership
sources volunteers from the top quartile of Accenture consultancy staff
as identified by performance appraisal.
