Winning Secrets: Accenture Solution Thailand is nurturing a humanistic culture enabled by technology

Accenture Solution Thailand took home the silver award for 'Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion' and the gold award for 'Excellence in Employee Engagement' at the inaugural HR Excellence Awards 2021, Thailand. 

In this interview, Kriengjit Lerdsittikul, Country HR Lead, Accenture Solution Thailand (pictured above), affirms how people are encouraged our people to bring their whole selves to work, with a belief that when they do so, they feel a sense of belonging and inclusivity. 

Q What is your organisation’s winning HR strategy, and what are some milestones you’ve accomplished along this journey?

Our strategy is simple - a humanistic culture that is enabled by technology. We encourage our people to bring their whole selves to work, with a belief that when people become their full, authentic selves at work, they feel a sense of belonging and inclusivity. And when people feel psychologically safe under a culture that supports them with growth, autonomy, and flexibility, they are highly productive, creative, and bring forward good initiatives that can make positive differences to the company and the society.

Starting with a simple thing to materialise our purpose, we leverage our capabilities and expertise to drive innovative technology solutions to address societal gaps and maximise each individual’s potential.

'Skill Uplift' is an activity we undertook with our people to help train and support the students at Setsatian School for the Deaf to create stickers for Line. This is with a view to help them develop their creative side and pursue future job opportunities. Another programme, 'Well-Sign' is one where we developed the first cloud-based mobile app dedicated to supporting Thai children and families impacted by hearing impairments; some features include visual learning on the go, curated content, and personalised learning.

Q How has this strategy helped you achieve your HR priorities, and what role has the leadership played in helping make this initiative a reality?

With inclusion & diversity having become our culture, everyone bring their whole self to work and is empowered to be a truly 'own' person. While inclusion starts with 'I', our people are willing to give each other permission to establish their own autonomy, a sense of personal ownership, and purpose. When we embrace our minds and hearts with inclusivity, and its right to participate and contribute, we reshape purpose-driven ways of work. This enables our people to co-create goals and invest in making collaboration fruitful. So, our people feel accountable for their achievements and honestly give and listen to feedback.

When our people are committing to acting on our purpose honestly, we don’t need a lonesome top-level to decide and lead; hence the role of leaders has become more of an orchestrator who helps to facilitate the uniqueness of each talent, believes in their potential, and co-designs their development plan together.

Q Unexpected roadblocks are part and parcel of executing any initiative. What were some of the barriers that you and your team experienced while rolling this out, and how did you successfully get past them?

Personal boundary always becomes an issue, especially when working in Thai culture. People tend to sacrifice their personal limits and boundaries to help achieve organisational agendas. And if we let this situation continue, our people run the risk of depleting their energy, resulting in lower engagement and wellbeing, more conflict, and poorer teamwork and communication.

In addressing such a situation, we need to empower our people to speak up when they are not OK, and give themselves and others permission to establish personal boundaries and preferred ways of working. We have launched several forums for our people to speak up; they can speak to their people lead, supervisor, HR, and in a virtual get-together forum to address their wellbeing and concerns to HR and leaders. So we activated personal self-care at the right time.

Q As evidenced by the win, this initiative clearly delivered some amazing results. What was your gameplan for measuring ROI? 

Our ROI never been measured by any number. We are committed to growing our people in multiple aspects, including their technical quotient, career and profession, mental strength, and understanding and living with the purpose to find meaning in what we are doing at work, at home, and in our community.

Q  We’re now seeing HR manage portfolios that were previously considered far from their job description. In your view, what are the top three skills and attributes of today’s successful CHRO?

A futurist mindset is the way to understand how people live and act with purpose and passion while striving for something.

The futurist's characteristics include empathy, becoming a lifelong learner and un-learner, embracing the art of the possible, and constantly challenging oneself to grow and learn.

As an orchestrator, the complexity of the challenges we will face in the future may be totally different from what we have observed in the past. Thus, the CHRO needs to create an environment that welcomes all assertiveness exhibited by anyone, regardless of any formal rank.

The organisation will need strong communicators, strong collaborators, strong executors, and strong assessors. Hence, the CHRO must know how to listen to others and re-calibrate their thinking based on their exchange. When people across all parts of an organisation identify with their role that enables them to give their best every day, it is proof of the efforts of the orchestrator who has facilitated the organsation to achieve things thought impossible.

The ability to connect the dots, connect the observations, data confluency, and other facts while taking a structured guess on those unknown or uncertain elements, hold the ability to make assumptions, and be a creative designer are all crucial for the role of putting all aspects into one story.

All images / Provided by Accenture

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