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This article brought to you by Workhuman.
Tiffany Jones realized right away that Accenture was the place for her.
“The second I got on the phone with someone from the team, I knew it was a fit, from the pace and the complexity to the opportunity to innovate,” she reflects. “I immediately thought, ‘This is home sweet home.’”
Now, more than a decade later, she holds the role of managing director and head of global rewards, recognition, and performance for the fifty countries the company operates and does business in. “It is a big, fun, exciting, awesome role,” she says. “If I could have said what my dream role would be, it would be this one.”
She spends her days with Accenture’s human resources teams and its business leaders around the world, working to recruit and retain talent and innovating benefits to make sure the company is competitive in its compensation offerings and programs.
“If I could have said what my dream role would be, it would be this one.”
Tiffany Jones
Jones’s team runs the performance and rewards cycles that furnish employee bonuses and recognition. “From the design and strategy, communication and technology that supports it, that’s what my team and I work on every day,” she says. “All of these experiences are very personal and mean so much to people, so it’s a proud thing to be able to touch so many people around the world with the things we do.”
In Jones’s prior role at Asurion, she toggled between recognition and compensation, working on designing compensation and bonus packages and creating leveling structures. She also learned about being agile, working quickly to move from idea to execution. “They were so open to innovation and new ideas,” she says. “It really prepped me to be able to come to this company and this role.”
Jones started out at Accenture in 2012 redesigning and evolving sales compensation plans, and then took on different roles with the company—all of which gave her a well-rounded experience that she applies today.
Her career journey began back when she was just sixteen, when she worked for her father after school as a human resources assistant. “I was intrigued by what he did because he was so dedicated to the people at the company. I thought ‘That’s a great job to have, where you’re there to support the business and the employees, and I want to do that,’” she remembers.
His ability to connect with all types of employees struck a chord with her. “I have fond memories, and I still have my notes from Take Your Daughter to Work Day when I was eleven and they celebrated a milestone related to stop-loss insurance,” Jones says. “I didn’t know what that was then, or that I’d have responsibility for that just over a decade later.”
After high school graduation, Jones went on to work in the benefits department of an area bank in Wisconsin, where she found a niche on the technical side. She got married and together they moved to Las Vegas, where she started working in benefits at American Casino & Entertainment Properties. “My career kept taking off,” she says. She was one of the youngest corporate directors and one of the only women in the room during many senior leadership meetings.
Jones is especially proud of the example her work sets for her three children. “I work really hard, like many of us do, which means a lot of time away from my family,” she says. “When I talk to my kids about it, I think it sets a really good example for them about feeling proud of what you do and enjoying how we spend that time working.”
Her job includes time spent on user experience, financial modeling, and discussions around scenarios for bonus plans and rewards budgets. She looks at how to support employees’ mental well-being and career growth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her job required even more creativity and nuance, as her team helped ensure support was set up for everyone, those with kids as well as those without.
“Everybody works together in pursuit of those common goals. It’s not an easy thing to find or create.”
Tiffany Jones
The managing director is eager to showcase her team, which has created a collaborative environment that’s helped them successfully navigate pandemic challenges and beyond. “We support each other; there isn’t ego or competition,” she explains. “Everybody works together in pursuit of those common goals. It’s not an easy thing to find or create.”
Jones says she is passionate about helping people have great careers. They have new tactics to provide leaders with insights that enable productive exchanges with each of the company’s more than seven-hundred thousand employees. “They get personalized guides to have great conversations, including tips on different benefits they might want to highlight, so they can have a well-rounded conversation, enabling people to be great people leaders,” she says.
Her ability to work with external partners has also garnered positive attention. “From the very beginning of our partnership, Tiffany has encouraged us to push the boundaries in how recognition can drive real inclusion and belonging at scale,” says Chris French, executive vice president at Workhuman. “At an organization of hundreds of thousands, she’s implementing industry-first solutions that enable recognition to be delivered in a truly personalized way, ensuring every employee feels seen no matter where they are or what they do.”
Jones advises young professionals to seek well-rounded experience across all parts of the industry. “Don’t try to skip ahead too quickly,” she says. “One of the reasons I feel confident in my role now is really because I remain grounded in the fundamentals. It is because I’ve done the work in the past that I can effectively support and lead the team.”
Working at different types of companies, she adds, gave her valuable perspective. “I was really able to understand the value of understanding your people and the personas of what you’re building and who you’re serving—how to serve them best and how to serve the business strategy,” she says. “Having those different experiences was really key to my learning and growth.”
