Accenture scraps diversity and inclusion goals

Accenture scraps diversity and inclusion goals

The company will also ditch career development programmes for 'specific demographic groups'.

Accenture EPA 070225
Accenture hires extensively from India. (EPA Images pic)
LONDON:
Accenture has scrapped its global diversity and inclusion goals after an evaluation of the US political landscape, the Financial Times reported today, citing a memo to the company’s staff from CEO Julie Sweet.

The company will start “sunsetting” the diversity goals it set in 2017, along with career development programmes for “people of specific demographic groups”, the report said.

Accenture, which hires extensively from India, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The report also quoted Sweet as saying that the change followed an “evaluation of our internal policies and practises and the evolving landscape in the US, including recent executive orders with which we must comply”.

Big Tech companies Meta, Alphabet and Amazon are among a slew of companies that scrapped their DEI goals leading up to and after Republican Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency.

Since taking office on Jan 20, Trump has issued a series of executive orders aimed at dismantling DEI programmes across the federal government and the private sector.

Along with rolling back Accenture’s DEI targets – which Sweet said would no longer be used to measure staff performance – the company will no longer submit data to external diversity benchmarking surveys, the report said.

Accenture would also evaluate external partnerships on the topic “as part of refreshing our talent strategy”, Sweet said in the memo cited in the report.

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