Accenture Interactive mobilized 450 talents across the world during COVID-19 while working remotely. They learned lessons around living at work, building team cohesion, and developing remote maturity. Key challenges included finding workspace at home and investing in infrastructure. Success relied on clear expectations, continuous improvement, and prioritizing people alignment. Remote culture was strengthened by behaviors like transparency, trust, diversity, and fairness for all.

1. Accenture Interactive
Accenture Interactive for Deutsche Telekom
Copyright © 2021 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Mobilizing
450 Talents
during COVID Our Lessons Learned
Education in Humility
Luisa Cobbe
Dino Frese
Accenture Interactive
June 2021
Accenture Interactive

2. Accenture Interactive
YOUR TEAM TODAY
Hello, Luisa here
Hamburg, Germany
Accenture Interactive

3. Accenture Interactive
Hello, I'm Dino
Copyright © 2021 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Cologne, Germany
INTRODUCTION

4. Accenture Interactive
Colombia
Spain
India
Germany
CONTEXT AND CHALLENGES
… looking for 450 talents across the world.

5. Accenture Interactive
ALL
REMOTE

6. Accenture Interactive
ALL
REMOTE
Living
at work
Remote Maturity
(“Workplan”)
Remote
Culture
Team
Cohesion

7. Accenture Interactive
LIVING
AT WORK

8. Accenture Interactive

9. Accenture Interactive
LIVING AT WORK
How many People
work remotely?
Source: Flexjobs, Gartner
4.7 million people were already working from
home before the pandemic
In the last five years, the trend of remote
working grew by 44%
During the coronavirus pandemic, 50% of the
organizations reported that over 80% of their
employees work remotely.

10. Accenture Interactive
A survey of 127 business reported that
82% of them permitted employees to
work from home for some time as daily
life resumed.
42% of workers will go for remote work
more frequently if they have the option.
How many People
work remotely?
LIVING AT WORK
Source: Owl Labs

11. Accenture Interactive
The debate about future of work continues
LIVING AT WORK

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• Find a space at home, that can be
turned into a workspace
• Think about your long-term health:
chair, desk and screen
• Invest on infrastructure: microphone,
earphones, internet
• Not everyone is set-up for taking on
camera calls from the couch, kitchen
table, or bed
LIVING AT WORK –LESSON LEARNED
Your workspace
is important

13. Accenture Interactive
TEAM
COHESION

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TEAM COHESION
Invest
extra time
into people
alignment

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TEAM COHESION
Continuously
reflect how you
work and
what to improve
Agility &
Retrospectives
in all teams

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TEAM COHESION
Be specific about
expectations,
objectives
and agreements

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REMOTE
MATURITY

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The way we work
has been
transformed
during the
Pandemic
REMOTE MATURITY
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work
147%
Meetings
Weekly meeting time has
more than doubled for Teams
users and is still rising
40.3B
Emails
Increase in number of
emails delivered in February
2021 vs. February 2020
65%
Docs
Number of people working on
office documents is up 66%
year over vear
45%
Chat
Weekly Teams chats per-
person are up 45% and still
rising

19. Accenture Interactive
REMOTE MATURITY
Prevent crazy
agendas

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Meetings can
be skipped
REMOTE MATURITY
Source:You Waste A Lot Of Time At Work (atlassian.com)
91%
Daydreamed
during meetings
96%
Missed
meetings
39%
Slept
during meetings
45%
Felt overwhelmed
by the number of meetings
they attended
73%
Did other work
in meetings
45%
Complained
meetings were the #1 time
waster at the office

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Communication
must be clear
• Provide full context
• Avoid unnecessary acronyms
• Be mindful about people with
different backgrounds
REMOTE MATURITY
"No one can actually remember all
these acronyms and people don’t
want to seem dumb in a meeting,
so they just sit there in ignorance.
his is particularly tough on new
employees.“
Elon Musk
CEO Tesla

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Source: https://ma.tt/2020/04/five-levels-of-autonomy
REMOTE MATURITY
• Most employees have home-office top notch setups
• Real-time meetings always have agendas and pre-
work or post-work.
• More tools to support enhanced productivity
• You evaluate people’s work on what they produce, not
how or when they produce it.
• Basic Remote equipment (i.e. Zooms )
• Everything happens in sync
• Everything that used to happen in person, is mimicked on-
line
• Work happens on company equipment,
in company space, on company time
• No remote equipment (i.e. VPN )
• Employees have Better Remote equipment
• More focus on written documentation
5 levels of Remote maturity
REMOTE NIRVANA
OUTPUT- BASED
REMOTE FIRST
IN-PERSON MIMIC
NO REMOTE

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REMOTE
CULTURE

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REMOTE CULTURE
CULTURE IS,
WHEN PEOPLE
EXPERIENCE
CONSISTENT
BEHAVIOURS
NORMS
& DECISIONS

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Our common behaviors & principles
REMOTE CULTURE
Transparency
& Communication
Trust &
Relationships
Increase diversity
and inclusion
Level playing field
for everyone

26. Accenture Interactive
ALL
REMOTE
Living
at work
Remote Maturity
(“Workplan”)
Remote
Culture
Team
Cohesion

27. Accenture Interactive for Deutsche Telekom AG
.
Accenture Interactive