1. Trend 2: Liquid
Workforce

2. People First:
The Primacy of People
in the Digital Age

3. The Accenture Technology Vision 2016 identifies five technology trends fueled by the
people first principle and that are essential to business success in the digital economy.
People First: The Primacy of People in the Digital Age
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 3
Intelligent
Automation
Liquid
Workforce
Platform
Economy
Predictable
Disruption
Digital
Trust

4. Business Drivers of Constant Change
Increased Pace of Technology Adoption: The expectations for businesses’
technology acumen is speeding up. For example, the telephone took 39 years
to reach 40% market penetration;; it took the smartphone 10 years.1
Misunderstood Millennials: 12% of hiring managers expect that teamwork/
co-­workers is a top priority for Millennials – while 39% of Millennials report
it as their actual priority. (Same with earning potential: 75% expected
vs. 44% actual)2
Changing Needs: IT and business executives report that “deep
expertise for the specialized task at hand” is only the fifth most important
characteristic they require for employees to perform well in a digital work
environment. Other qualities such as “ability to quickly learn” and “ability
to ‘shift gears’” ranked higher.3
Companies are investing in the tools and technologies they
need to keep pace with constant change in the digital era.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
1 "The Pace of Technology Adoption is Speeding Up,” Harvard Business Review, November 2013;; 2 "The 2015 Millennial
Majority Workforce: Study Results,” RedBrick Research, October 2014;; 3 Accenture Technology Vision 2016 Survey

5. Technology Drivers of Constant
Expanding Workforce: 51% of workers
believe that digital technology has expanded
the number of individuals they work with
outside of their organization.1
Accessing Talent Faster: Upwork reports that
they can get hiring managers the talent they
need in 3 days, compared to the months long
traditional process.2
On The Job Tech: By 2019, it is expected that
17% of workers will only use mobile devices to
do their job.3
Companies are investing in the tools and technologies they
need to keep pace with constant change in the digital era.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 5
1 “Technology’s Impact on Workers,” Pew Research Center, December 2014;; 2 “Solution overview", Upwork, 2015;;
3 “39 ways the American workforce is dramatically changing in 2015”, Business Insider, June 2015

6. Instead of acting solely as
a disruptor, technology can
help companies transform
their people, projects, and
entire organizations into
a highly adaptable and
change-­ready enterprise
But to achieve their ambitious goals, leaders are
refocusing on an often overlooked factor: the workforce
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 6

7. Shifts in the workforce are creating new opportunities
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Worker Redistribution: Demand for jobs humans
excel at (non-­routine interpersonal & analytical jobs)
are at an all time high.
Automation: Automation is taking
over more routine and manual tasks.
Pace of Innovation: New
technology is constantly emerging,
and the pace of adoption is faster
than ever.
Rise of Freelancing: 43% of
the US workforce is expected
to be freelancers by 2020.1
A New Generation: In 2015
Millennials became the largest
share of the workforce. By 2025,
that number will be 75% globally.2
Skills Economy: Companies can build new
strategies to leverage the contingent workforce and
quickly access a wide range of deep technical skills.
Continuous Training: By making training a core
competency, organizations can actively develop the
skills that will set themselves apart from competitors
Digital Natives: With the right engagement strategy,
businesses can leverage the excitement for
technology, teamwork, and digital acumen of
Millennials to push forward on their new initiatives.
1 “Intuit Forecast: 7.6 Mln People in On-­Demand Economy by 2020,” Intuit press release, August 13, 2015;; 2 “Millennials Surpass Gen Xers as the
Largest Generation in U.S. Labor Force,” Pew Research Center, May 11, 2015;; “Creating a ‘Generation Connected’ Workplace,” Workforce, May 1, 2015

8. Business leaders are
realizing a more liquid
workforce can become their
new competitive advantage.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 8
Tomorrow: Adaptable workforces organized
around projects, with embedded training.
Static workforces organized around
specific skills and functions
Project oriented
working groups,
emphasizing
collaboration, agility,
and skill sharing.
Increased
expansion of
workforce to external
talent including both
formal contractors and
crowd platforms.
Failing fast and
iterative;; employees
are empowered
to innovate.
Continuous
training as a core
organizational
competency.
Data-­based
organizational
management using
predictive analytics
and end-­to-­end
HR suites.
The
FutureSiloed work generally
aligned by business function
(engineering, sales,
marketing, design, etc.)
Training is ad-­hoc, as
needed for a particular tool
or technology (in which the
company has generally
already invested)
Low levels of collaboration
Innovation generally
practiced by specific non-­
official groups or ‘lone
wolfs’ in the organization.
Fragmented workforce
management tools
The Present

9. But, how?
Businesses must
develop new, more
fluid, strategies
9Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Skills
Build learning as a
core competency in the
organization to actively
generate skills that are
in demand.
Projects
Use technology to
coalesce and disband
internal and external talent
at your disposal for new
innovative projects.
Organization
Optimize workforce
responsiveness with
insightful analytics that
provide a real-­time view
of organizational
capabilities.

10. Build training as a core competency in the organization
to actively generate skills that are in demand and unveil
new talent in the organization.
Every Job is a Digital Job: Technology is fundamentally
changing the way people work and the work they do, a trend
businesses embrace as they move to compete in the digital age.
Have Tech, Need Skills: Now, the talent companies demand
is rapidly outpacing the speed at which individuals are able to
traditionally acquire those skills.
Train Your Own: Companies must take an active role in
creating the skills they need by making training a critical
component of their talent management strategy.
Developing fluid skills as an organizational competency
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 10

11. One of the biggest impediments to adopting
new technology solutions is the lack of skills.
2014: Facebook acquired Oculus. In 2015, the demand
for VR jobs went up 37% year over year.
200 companies have listed postings for VR related
skills, including Disney, General Dynamics, John Deere,
and others.
A recent view accounted for 12,000 people in the US with
VR related skills, concentrated in Washington DC and the
Bay Area.
The answer? Create the skills you need.
Building fluid skills for new tech will deliver a decisive advantage
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 11
200 Companies Now Hiring – A Look at the Growing Virtual Reality Jobs Market, Road to VR, May 29, 2015

12. Creating fluid projects requires a combination
of freelancers, employees, skills and technology
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 12
Costs
$40-$60
million
Crew
400-500
people
Production
12 months
to 2 years
Distribution
Actors
Script
Writers
Cinemato-
graphers
Production
Teams
Editors
Electrical
Technicians
Studio
Producers
Director Cameramen
/Grip
Learning from
Hollywood

13. Optimize workforce responsiveness with insightful analytics
that provide a real-­time view of organizational capabilities.
Consolidate Tools: Reduce the clutter of existing tools
and invest in end-­to-­end workforce management solutions.
People Analytics: Gather valuable data to do things
from increasing efficiency to smart talent placement.
Workforce + Strategy: Make workforce management
a key part of new business strategy and pursuing broader
organizational goals.
Managing a distributed workforce with increasingly fluid
projects and people requires a strong core organization
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 13

14. Fluid organizations may seem daunting to enterprises everywhere,
but there are big companies that have been doing it for years
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 14
Fluid Organizations at Scale: We know, because we do.
Scale: 373,000
Employees*
* As of Nov 30, 2015
Education:
Robust career
development with $841
million on training and
professional development
in fiscal year 2015.
Continuous
Performance:
New model of
on-­going feedback.
Distributing Skills:
Employees learn new
skills on the job and rely
on them to teach their
peers new skills.
Talent Fulfillment:
Set of employees
dedicated to matching
every employee with the
right jobs.

15. Address Workforce Disruptions Today
Agile Workforce = Agile Business
Start Your Transformation: Making
training a core competency to ensure
you have the right skills for the right jobs.
• Becoming more project oriented and
agile while empowering collaboration
and new ideas.
• Effectively managing a distributed
workforce with an organization that is
built to facilitate, not impede.
The liquid workforce is rapidly becoming the new
normal for how businesses organize themselves.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 15

16. Liquid Workforce: 100-­Day Plan
16Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
1. Perform a skills gap analysis. Have your HR organization review open
roles in your company and determine high priority roles that are remaining
unfilled due to difficulty finding appropriate talent.
2. Build a strategy for expanding your organization’s training capabilities.
Determine what investments in facilities, technology, or people will need to be
made to deliver training consistently and effectively across your workforce.
3. Create a new engagement strategy, keeping in mind what millennials
demand from their employers. Develop a plan that will allow workers to
contribute to projects they are passionate about, move freely through the
organization, and find work that best suits native skills with digital technology.
4. Formalize your organization’s approach toward engaging with freelancers
and contractors. Create a clear distribution of work between long and short-­
term employees that plays to the strengths of each and communicate this
framework with employees.
5. Pilot a new liquid project. Assign a ‘stretch’ project to one of your groups
and grant them the autonomy and dedicated resources that allow them to
accomplish their goal. Use this pilot as a foundation for developing a formal
liquid project strategy.

17. Liquid Workforce: 365-­Day Plan
17Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
1. Put your new training strategy to work. Pick one high-­need skill
and pilot a new curriculum to train existing employees in that area.
2. Build a plan to scale your liquid project practices across the
organization. Learn from the progress of your pilot group.
3. To understand where your enterprise stands to benefit most from
crowdsourcing, commission three projects that each focus on a
different area that the crowd is well-­suited to address.
4. Integrate the use of analytics into your HR organization. Pair a team
from HR with your data scientists to derive new insights from your
workforce that could help with reviews, promotions, hiring, or other
areas that need improvement.
5. Introduce predictive analytics to one area of your people
management strategy (promotions or hiring for example).

18. Predictions
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 18
Roles Vanish
Organization charts become obsolete,
gobbled up by software. Employees change
their skills and focus to achieve their
personal goal which is common outcomes
for the business, inventing the new.
Freelance is the Future
Within 10 years, we will see a
new Global 2000 company with
no full-­time employees outside
of the C-­suite.

19. What to expect next
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. 19
Corporate Education
Will Replace Some
Higher Education
Rise of Digital
Reputation
Fully Liquid
Enterprise
Predictive
Workforce

20. Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Thank you
#techvision2016
www.accenture.com/technologyvision