The FINANCIAL — NEW YORK — It will be a better new year for 3,500 people looking for work in 2015 as Accenture and Ashoka launch the Talent Growth Initiative (TGI), which not only provides skills training to unemployed and underemployed individuals, it helps place them in jobs, according to Accenture.
Funded, in part, by more than $4 million in grants and pro-bono support from Accenture and the Accenture Foundations, the initiative mobilizes partnerships with job training and placement organizations – such as Upwardly Global, I-LEAD, Per Scholas, ScriptEd, The Scholarship Academy and LeadersUp – that focus on up-skilling individuals and placing them with employers who identify open positions that require specific skills.
In fact, through the initiative’s training and placement partners, Accenture and Ashoka will equip approximately 5,800 individuals with professional and technical skills to get a job as well as provide them with leadership, teamwork and negotiation training. The effort is part of Accenture’s corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed, which is equipping more than 700,000 people around the world with the skills to get a job or build a business.
“With the Talent Growth Initiative, we’re helping to address the skills gap by convening innovative cross-sector partnerships,” said Larry Solomon, North America operating officer and corporate citizenship lead for Accenture. “This initiative provides a more sustainable career track for job seekers and creates a new pipeline of qualified and diverse talent for employers.”
Additionally, Accenture is providing pro-bono consulting services to the job-training organizations to strengthen career pathways for workers and ensure they complete their up-skilling/education and successfully transition into employment. Also, through Ashoka’s “changemaker” curriculum, the TGI is delivering the skills that are increasingly in demand for today’s career-track jobs – such as adaptability, resilience and entrepreneurship – to better prepare talent for the 21st century workforce, according to Accenture.
“We are delighted to work with Accenture to help enable both employers and employees to adapt to a new talent paradigm that requires constant evolution and innovation,” said Bill Drayton, founder and CEO, Ashoka.
Discussion about this post