The Deloitte21 Challenge: Innovating to change lives

As you may have read in Julie Engerran’s recent blog post, Deloitte21 represents a far-reaching commitment by Deloitte member firms to change the lives of thousands of underserved young people across the globe. Through Deloitte21, Deloitte leaders and professionals contribute their time and expertise to nonprofit programs that provide access to the education and skills necessary for success in the 21st-century economy.

Deloitte21: Equipping young people to thrive in the 21st-century

Fundamental shifts have been shaping the 21st-century workplace: developing countries such as India, China, and Brazil have joined the world stage; technology has become inherently intertwined with daily routines; and the global economy has moved from a labor-based system to one dependent on education and knowledge.  These changes have highlighted the inequalities in access to education, and shown how necessary an educated workforce is to the health of global and national economies.  They’re also showing how a lack of access to quality education in both developing and developed countries is creating a global talent shortage.

Expectations for the classroom have also shifted. Schools must expose young people to the critical thinking skills that will allow them to be successful members of the 21st-century workforce.  Opening doors to new opportunities and developing responses to the many challenges facing our world requires that we equip young people to innovate, solve problems, work across cultures, and collaborate on teams.

Why WEP matters: The UN Women’s Empowerment Principles – one year later

It is a universal maxim that there is strength in numbers. While it’s great when one company commits to investing in women—it’s even better when that number is 170. That’s how many CEOs have now signed the United Nation’s Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP). And as evidenced by the UN’s one-year commemoration of the launch of WEP last month, that number seems likely to grow.

This event, where I participated as a panelist, took the importance of WEP to a new level. More than 150 executives attended the conference, from such well-known companies as Banco de Brasil, Calvert Asset Management, and Novo Nordisk. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, himself opened the meeting—and there were nearly as many men as women in attendance.

All of this underscored a palpable sense of urgency that seemed to pervade the conference. An urgency that the time to invest in women is now. Not in a year or two when the economy recovers. Not when the dust settles after various laws and regulations take effect, but now. If you want to grow your economy or business and stay competitive, you need to start taking the role of women in organizations and in leadership roles more seriously—and focus on intentional change.

Deloitte joins GRI at the launch of Focal Point USA

On 31 January members of Deloitte’s* Sustainability Services team joined in the launch of Focal Point USA, the new U.S. office of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), at the New York Stock Exchange. Focal Point USA aims to boost the number of U.S. companies reporting on sustainability performance in a consistent manner, to improve the quality of those reports, and to increase U.S. organizations’ input into developing new guidelines for sustainability reporting.

It’s clear that U.S. companies are putting an increased emphasis on their approach to sustainability reporting as evidenced by the sold out crowd and representation from large companies, NGOs and academics from across the country. Our clients are interested in bringing their reporting on non-financial performance to the same level of maturity as financial reporting in order to provide their stakeholders with a more comprehensive view of a company’s overall performance, taking environmental and social performance into consideration. The establishment of the GRI Focal Point USA is a key step in driving more frequent, accurate and robust reporting on sustainability performance in the U.S. and will be critical to the eventual move towards integrated financial and non-financial reporting.

Several important themes emerged during the event that further emphasized the importance of integrating sustainability into broader corporate strategy. There was robust discussion on the theme of “sustainability makes business sense” and the need to connect sustainability metrics with both individual and corporate goals and objectives. Another major theme was the role of the CFO in sustainability management and reporting. This is clearly an important focus for Deloitte as we work with thousands of CFOs on their companies’ financial reporting, compliance requirements, and stakeholder expectations. 

As with reliable financial reporting, there are many possible benefits for a company that implements assurance processes and reporting on sustainability activities. In addition, through a reliable sustainability reporting and assurance process, management demonstrates its desire to deliver accurate and useful information to its various stakeholders. Therefore, it is important that companies’ reporting on their ESG efforts become more uniform and reliable. 

As the move towards integrated reporting further materializes, it will be critical for us to help CFOs understand the financially material impact of their organizations’ environmental and social performance, and how to report on that performance in a consistent and meaningful way—supported by a roadmap for further integration into corporate strategy and continuous improvement. 

We look forward to the challenge and the opportunity!

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Eric Hespenheide is the Global Audit and Enterprise Risk Services Leader for Deloitte’s Sustainability & Climate Change Services Group.

*As used in this article, “Deloitte” means Deloitte & Touche LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.

Live at Davos | Deloitte’s response to “Preparing for the Global Talent Crisis”

As the Global Managing Director of Brand at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, I am often asked how employer branding—the way an organization uses its brand to attract, engage, and retain its people—can protect the sustained future of an organization and the global business community.

The answer, as you might suspect, is not simple—engaging employees with their employer’s brand requires the utmost innovation. In fact, central to the idea of investing in an employer brand as a way to achieve competitive eminence is viewing talent and brand as an integrated solution to resolve the unparalleled global crisis of talent scarcity.

With that in mind, I am proud to be in the company of the distinguished government, business, and community leaders participating in this year’s World Economic Forum session on “Preparing for the Global Talent Crisis: Action Time”. The Forum is a wonderful opportunity to engage in education-focused discussions with other thought leaders.

Below are several key insights and responses on the impact of global talent risk from the Forum’s report Global Talent Risk – Seven Responses:

Deloitte 21: Project Grasp My Future in action at Deloitte France to help underserved young students

After these wonderful days in London participating in the Deloitte21 workshop this is our turn to introduce the essence of French mentoring. The Grasp My Future mentoring program forms part of Deloitte’s desire to help today’s youth access higher education in favorable conditions. To this end, Deloitte takes part in several educational programs from junior high school through to five years post high school diploma.

The Grasp My Future mentoring program is open to all Deloitte France employees and student mentees volunteer to participate, and are supported by their school and teachers. Two Deloitte employees are matched with one student to mentor for two years. The Deloitte employees provide mentees with:

• A first contact with the corporate world: its method of operating, its culture and its demands, which will enable the mentee to start a professional relationship adapted to the corporate world.
• A fun approach to the corporate world: providing access to information on the activities of companies and contact with employees in a variety of business sectors and illustrating, through immersion, the description of a business or activity sector.
• Skills development and career guidance support: the mentors assist the mentee with the construction of a professional development project whereby the mentee is able determine the best training courses to develop his/her skills. The mentors work with the student to help them decide what classes to take and diploma to pursue, and what company would be interested to hire them after their studies.

The Grasp My Future program operates around two major meetings supplemented by individual mentoring sessions:

• A launch evening: the first meeting of the year, bringing together all mentors and mentees. In 2008 and 2009, this evening was held in November at the Louvre.
• A human resources workshop day at Deloitte’s office: this session brings together mentors and mentees for a series of workshops. Volunteer employees are mobilized to offer numerous workshops to mentees: drafting CVs, practice interviews, access to the E-Learning center to test their level of English, and presentations of Deloitte’ businesses. Since 2008, this day of workshops has been held during the student’s Spring holidays.

Outside of these two major events, the mentors and mentees meet on a more informal basis in line with the mentees needs. Each mentee is at a different stage in the development of his/her professional development project. Needs will therefore differ from one mentee to another and the frequency of meetings will vary depending on the “study point” at which the mentee finds him/herself.

The French mentoring is quite the same as we did in London with the students we met, but with a continuous relationship all along the year.
Mentoring provides the Deloitte volunteers with satisfaction in a number of areas, including:

• Participating in a civic initiative within Deloitte’s corporate social responsibility framework, with the support of Executive Management
• Committing to an association directly at their place of work, rather than having to travel off-site to participate
• Getting involved alongside other Deloitte employees, of all grades and from all departments
• Sharing experience and communicating know-how to the younger generations

Feedback from students is very encouraging and helpful:

“I’m proud of making it to the end. It was difficult, but I learned a lot and developed more efficient working methods… At the beginning of the course two years seems long, but it goes so quickly you don’t see time pass. I’m glad it’s finished, but it’s really a worthwhile experience.”

“This was a powerful human experience, with several important encounters that helped me progress. It was a difficult experience, but it enabled me to see that we can push beyond our limits. After these two years, I feel more mature and stronger. However, the stress is still there with the beginning of the exams…”

We are now planning for the new tutoring session, with new students and mentees, which will officially start at the end of October. At the same time, we are developing a partnership with a suburban college. The kick-off event will be held at the end of September and we are really eager to start this partnership!

We look forward to sharing with you how these initiatives progress!

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Charlotte Jaffré is a supervisor in the Deloitte France audit practice and holds a master’s degree from University Paris Dauphine with a specialization in accounting and finance. She is also a Deloitte21 Fellow.

Music and leadership

I attended a most interesting WEF Summer Davos session lead by Concert Violinist Miha Pogačnik, an associate of the German Institute for the Development of Intercultural Relations through the Arts.  Pogačnik pointed out in his opening comments that business leaders these days used more and more terms which are connected with the emotional—right— side of the brain i.e. passion, inspiration, performance, creativity, etc. He explained this concept with a simple statement:

“Unless you put your heart into the things you do, you will get very sick.”

To me, leadership is indeed all about passion, and it is one of the strongest emotions of mankind. Great leaders are those who inspire great dreams by focusing on just a few basic values. 

Pogačnik took us on a journey that identified the similarities of the change management process lead by a successful leader to the composition of a classical music masterpiece. He acknowledged the following five steps as common to both processes:
- Stage 1 – The mind purification process whereby the mind is freed from all buzz, and becomes ready to concentrate on the big task ahead. This phase corresponds to focusing on the big picture versus being absorbed by operational routines.
- Stage 2 – The identification of the “brand” for the composition, which uncovers the basic themes, and which in turn will direct the journey.
- Stage 3 – The confrontation with change, which involves a stormy process of dissemination, discussion, initial rejection, and other chaotic situations.
- Stage 4 - The ‘refocus’ stage, where sanity and serenity return and where all attention is centered on the ultimate goals and basic values.
- Stage 5 - The final phase in which all opposites are brought together, and where “TRUST” is created.

I found the concept of comparing the business strategy setting and execution with classical music composition most intriguing. After all, several masterpieces have survived hundreds of years and many generations – just imagine if we were able to do that in the business world.

What were my reasons for attending this session?

First, I am always interested in listening to a new and different perspective. At Deloitte that’s what we try to deliver for our firms’ clients.

But, on a lighter note, although the meeting’s dress code is business casual, over 75 percent of all participants usually appear in full business suits, including ties. I happened to be tie-less that day.  And guess what?  About 75 percent of the participants in this session were tie-less as well. In addition, I had overheard a discussion at the bar the night prior between Pogačnik and another delegate, in which he said, “Life is about value added, not about numbers”.  After overhearing this statement, I think I subconsciously decided to leave my tie on the rack the next morning…

Below is an interesting quote from Pogačnik that I wanted to share:
 “If you focus on the money, the money will be gone quickly, but if you focus on the values, the money comes by itself”.

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Ludo De Keulenaer is DTTL Global Managing Partner, Brand.

Further insights on Summer Davos CEO roundtable

As the China Managing Partner of Business Development and Public Affairs, I found the Deloitte and Talents magazine breakfast roundtable extremely insightful.  The following are my strongest impressions from listening to the open sharing of experiences by business leaders of many of Tianjin's top enterprises.

Although there is common acknowledgement that regulatory risk is the biggest current and medium term challenge, different industries face different specific risks.  That is why it is so important that our national industry practices and our enterprise risk management advisory specialists continue to work closely together to assist clients.

As we have seen in recent times, even the most established businesses are exposed to many risks that they have not been able to anticipate nor have solutions for. Executives with whom I chatted during the Roundtable expressed concern about there being so many unknown risks.  I shared with them the approach that Deloitte advises which is to control what you can and have a structured approach to do that. The top enterprises of Tianjin attending the Roundtable have strong growth potential to become major national enterprises in the near future, and to realize this potential they must prepare to operate in increasingly complex markets within and beyond China. This is a major step and calls on them to develop capabilities and obtain experience that they may not currently have. 

Also, in chatting with the executives, I learned that even though we had open and intense sharing during the one hour Roundtable, there were many more experiences and questions they wanted to discuss had there been more time to do so. This being the case, we will be following up with a number of participants to see how we can provide further information or ideas in response to these. 

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Jennifer Xie is a Managing Partner of Business Development & Public Affairs for Deloitte China.Jennifer leads initiatives related to key government relationships business development, brand and communications. Jennifer is also an executive member of the Marketplace Council at Deloitte China.

Deloitte21: The OK! project and Deloitte Finland mentors are ready!

My Deloitte21 placement, the OK! project, is about to start its fourth consecutive class. Our aim is to improve unemployed young immigrants’ work readiness skills and provide them with employment opportunities. The program was initiated in response to the demand for more skilled workers and the need to ensure immigrant youth are integrated into Finnish society. I serve on the project steering committee, train the youth, and now for the first time will serve as a mentor for some of the youngsters.

The program consists of work-readiness skills training and an internship. This is the first time we have included mentoring into the curriculum. Every one of the youngsters will get a Deloitte professional who serves as their mentor during this 14-week journey. As mentors, we provide guidance,  career planning, and answer those questions that might puzzle youngsters facing their first day at their internship company. We are aiming to create an open and trustworthy dialog between the participants and their mentors.

I am very pleased by how many Deloitte volunteers signed up for this task. I think this is a great example of Deloitte employees’ activeness in the local communities. For us, it’s not just words but actual hands-on volunteering and the willingness to put yourself out there!

The recruitment is about to start shortly and the program will launch early November as the youngsters arrive to Deloitte House where the training is held. I am confident that we will get a group of well-motivated students, as word has travelled among the youth that this is a truly unique opportunity for them.

I have been working with the OK! project for 3 years now, but have more energy and excitement than ever to make this a successful and life-changing experience for these youngsters, and I can say the same for my fellow mentors too! I will keep you posted on how my project moves along.

If you are interested in learning more visit the OK! project website on Deloitte.com.

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Mia Liimo joined Deloitte Finland in 2004. Mia is a Marketing Advisor and leads Deloitte Finland’s Community Agenda, serves as the Corporate Responsibility Portfolio Manager, and is a Deloitte21 Fellow.

Deloitte21: Working with Junior Achievement's MESE program in Japan

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to meet the Deloitte21 Fellows from all over the world last May in London. After sharing the wonderful experiences together during the workshop, I felt inspired by other Fellows and empowered to move our Deloitte21 program forward here in Japan.

After careful consideration, our Deloitte21 program project team decided to focus our efforts on assisting the MESE (Management and Economic Simulation Exercise) by Junior Achievement. We believe that the MESE program aligns well with the Deloitte21 mission of assisting underserved youth in developing 21st century skills.

MESE is a computer-simulated program developed by Junior Achievement. In the program, students assume the roles of corporate managers, and make production and marketing decisions for an imaginary product called Eco-Pen. During the simulation, students decide on pricing, amount of production, advertising cost, capital investment, and R&D expense. They analyze industry reports, balance sheets, profit and loss statements and market conditions before making their decisions and submitting them to the facilitator. The most successful teams will be those that best balance supply and demand at the highest level of production and price. The purpose of this program is to develop basic skills needed for social life, such as decision-making, courage to express different opinions from others, and acceptance of cultural diversity.

Over the past few months, we have been working closely with Junior Achievement to develop more effective ways to promote the MESE program to high schools all over Japan. Our objective is to raise awareness of these necessary skills that students will need to succeed in the 21st century economy to both students and their teachers through the promotion of the MESE program.

In order for our team to better understand the MESE process, several weeks ago Ms. Yoriko Kuroki, Director from Junior Achievement, facilitated an MESE simulation for our Deloitte21 team, enabling us to experience the program in action.

Nine employees from different divisions participated in the activity. We were divided into three teams -- each team, or “company” was given a name of a major manufacturer. Our goal was to market a fictitious product called an “Eco-Pen.” By default, the pricing for each Eco-Pen was set at $30.  In the first round, each company had to decide on its initial selling price based upon the business information provided, and compete with other companies. The intent of this exercise was to provide the teams with a realistic market situation.

One team dropped the price to increase their sales volume, another raised the price to increase their profit margin. Our team decided not to change the price from the default. We obtained the performance results (Management and Performance Index) calculated by a computer application on the facilitator’s PC with the prices that each company set.  Based upon the results, we analyzed the data and made the subsequent decisions hoping to obtain higher performance results. We repeated the process several times which included adjusting the amount of production, advertising cost, capital investment, and R&D expense as well. 

The simulation lasted about two hours, and to my surprise, my team won with the highest performance score!  It was really interesting to see that one company never recovered from the bottom ranking, even after several rounds.

Even accounting professionals like ourselves, with real-world experience working with clients were very excited participating in the simulation, and each of us found ourselves engaged in heated discussions as the game progressed.

According to Ms. Kuroki, “The key learning from the program for students is that decision-making is often accompanied by the result and the responsibility.  In the near future, students will face numerous situations in which they have to make a decision including choosing their future career path.”  She also said that if students could make decisions by themselves, they would take the responsibility and could accept the result.

As the next step, we are planning to develop marketing tools, such as brochures and promotional video clips, which will encourage teachers to use the program in their school curriculum. As the program is implemented, we believe that MESE will be more effective if facilitated by Deloitte professionals who have broader business knowledge and experiences. Therefore, we plan to select professionals who are willing to contribute to their alma maters by promoting the program and facilitating it as a touch point.  We hope that the schools will benefit from the presence of our professionals and in turn, our professionals will feel the sense of fulfillment from their contribution. By taking this approach, we anticipate that the program will continue and grow. We are really excited to meet high school students through this program!

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Shinako Matsuzaki is a Certified Public Accountant and joined Deloitte in the US in 2006 where she performed accounting and auditing functions for major corporate clients. Shinako moved to Tokyo in April 2009 and is currently a Senior Consultant in Enterprise Risk Services as well as a Deloitte 21 Fellow.