Dorian Twiggs at Accenture’s offices in Charlotte, N.C. The former mortgage underwriter took on a software job after completing a six-week retraining course. Photo: Travis Dove for The Wall Street Journal By Lauren Weber Updated June 23, 2019 5:33 pm ET Five months after Dorian Twiggs packed up her life in Detroit and moved to Charlotte, N.C., to work as a mortgage underwriter for Accenture ACN -0.
About four years ago, Accenture executives faced a decision: lay off a swath of the firm’s workforce, or train employees to deliver new, higher-value services. “You can’t take 200,000 employees and send them to a classroom for a week and think you’ve solved the problem,” said Omar Abbosh, Accenture’s former chief strategy officer who now leads its communications, media and technology business. “It’s a nonending thing.”
Across the corporate landscape, there is evidence to suggest companies and investors see automation as creating shareholder value largely by reducing labor costs. According to Accenture’s research, 74% of executives in 2017 said they planned to use artificial intelligence to automate many tasks over the next three years. Yet 3% said they were going to significantly increase their investment in training workers over that period.
Her new job requires her to be an adviser to clients, not just toil in a back office. “I had been doing mortgages for so long and you kind of get stuck in, like, this is what I do,” said Ms. Twiggs, who says she now has skills she can apply to any industry.
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