Iowa companies will need to rethink the ways they recruit, train and re-skill their employees if they want to be the disrupters in their industries rather than the disrupted, says Pallavi Verma. As Midwest senior managing director with Accenture, she oversees about 10,000 employees across 13 states, including Iowa. 

The types of projects that Accenture is working on in the Midwest prove that the technology jobs of the future aren’t confined to places like Silicon Valley or Boston, Verma said. She recently spoke to more than 1,000 business and education leaders attending the Future Ready Iowa conference in Des Moines. 

“On any given day, you can find our people helping a utility company use drone-based systems for visual surveillance and data gathering, and making inspection processes safer and more efficient,” she said. “Or partnering with a retailer to implement artificial intelligence to improve call center effectiveness. And helping a medical technology company build a mobile solution to streamline and coordinate real-time patient treatment care.” 

Accenture last year acquired Pillar Technology, a Columbus, Ohio-based technology consulting company that operates the Forge in Des Moines. By September, Accenture plans to open a rural version of the Forge in Jefferson, Iowa. That initiative will bring together private-sector, governmental and community college support to develop “homegrown professionals working together on next-generation technology solutions,” Verma said. 

The global consulting and technology company, which employs more than 175,000 people worldwide, in 2016 launched a companywide apprenticeship program. By the end of this year, that program will have trained about 450 apprentices in nine U.S. cities. The majority of apprentices who have completed the program are now Accenture employees, she said. 

In its efforts to broaden its search for talent, Accenture is nearing a goal of achieving gender balance across its entire organization, Verma said. Currently, about 43% of the company’s personnel are women, in what has tended to be a male-dominated field.  

Accenture last year joined forces with about 20 other companies in Chicago to develop an apprenticeship network, an effort that has resulted in about 400 new apprenticeship opportunities in the Chicago area. 
 
With studies showing that more than half the tasks that workers perform could be augmented by technology, and nearly 40% potentially could be automated, it’s imperative to reach the untapped talent that will develop and apply those competitive technologies, Verma said. 

“For those of you in the business world, take a look at your job descriptions and the type of education and skills you need,” she said. “And based on that, look at your recruiting efforts. Are you casting a wider net and reaching this untapped pool of talent?” 

Here’s a link to coverage of Business Record’s Power Breakfast on similar topics:  http://bit.ly/2QfOsbT