Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Twitter

Finishing Schools Not Enough
The gaps in the skill-sets required for entry into a company, have resulted in the emergence of finishing schools, with some companies specially targeting this lot. Even a group of IIM alumni have got together and floated a company called Elements Akademia aimed at creating an innovative national chain of vocational schools. Elements Akademia aims to bridge that gap by offering a 6-month part-time vocational course designed with the help of their corporate partners. This will prepare graduates in tier-2 cities for entry level jobs in IT services apart from other sectors. The company's vision is to annually make 10,000+ Indians employable. 24x7 Learning is another company trying to cash in on the employability factor by offering solutions. According to the company's website, “For every 5 hires, there are 250 near hires. All that is required to convert the 'near-hire' into a hire is relevant IT and behavioral training.” It sells employability enhancement programs.

One of the finishing schools' catch-line aptly describes the importance of finishing schools: “People and Diamonds have real market value once polished.”

The eligibility criterion at NIT, Trichy gives an indication of the efforts made to find a way out of the current employability mess. It invites applications from “only engineering graduates of any disciplines from recognized Institutes/Colleges from Tamil Nadu, who have completed their course in 2007 or 2008 and haven't got any jobs, are eligible to apply for the program. Such candidates have to declare that they have not obtained a fulltime job while applying for this special program.”

“Today, the concern is not of freshers but of managing the middle level, as we are growing them too fast. We have got into a panic mode because of the boom and are promoting them left, right, and center indiscriminately” Rosita Rabindra, executive VP, HR, NIIT Tech	“The idea behind Wipro's Mission 10X was to work at the faculty level in terms of capability building, which will work in ground up mode and will go a long way in increasing employability” Selvan D, senior VP, Talent Transformation, Wipro Technologies	“Employability of India's engineering graduates is a key concern across the industry ecosystem, as companies spend up to a year training recruits” Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate vice president & managing director, Cadence Design Systems	“Employability has improved in the last four years. But we have found that 40% of students get rejected on analytical skills, 20-30% on soft skills, and another 10% on technical skills” Rajasekharan SG, senior VP, Keane India

So who needs finishing schools? According to Rajasekharan SG, senior VP, Keane India, “If a candidate has obtained 60% marks in class 10, intermediate, followed by engineering, chances are that he or she should easily be able to get a job. The people who go to finishing schools are the people who have not done their academics well. When companies are short of people and the demand supply situation becomes bad, then companies would surely consider going to finishing schools and take students from there as a last resort.” On what needs to be done, Ajay K Sharma, president and CEO, New Horizons says, “Much work is necessary in the more intangible area of soft-skills such as management, communication and language-important elements of what comprises an 'industry-ready' or 'employable' resource.” RiiiT and PurpleLeap (Karnataka) and Globsyn (West Bengal) are some of the prominent finishing school initiatives towards addressing the employability issue.

Where's the Faculty?
According to the National Knowledge Commission, India will need 1,500 more universities by 2015 to keep up with the development and fill up the gap in manpower requirement. One good news that came sometime back, which will undoubtedly give a boost to creating the pool, was the government's decision to increase the number of IITs to sixteen, with eight new ones coming up in Rajasthan, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal, Gujarat, Orissa, MP and Punjab while the institute at BHU will be converted into an IIT as well. The crucial question everybody is asking –Where is the faculty? Putting the appropriate faculty in place won't be an easy task. It should be recalled that 3.22 lakh students appeared for 4193 seats this year. Becoming teachers is not something which is seen as glamorous enough. Getting students won't be much of a challenge but the problem would be getting faculty.

Optimizing Women Talent
Women employees form a substantial chunk of the IT workforce, and in some companies their presence is as high as 30%. Losing these employees who leave permanently or temporarily due to some special need arising out of maternity or child care, also puts extra pressure on companies. Some companies have good plans in place wherein they offer flexible work hours to those who are really in need of them. Working from home is also encouraged in some companies. NIIT Technologies has something called “half day, half pay policy”, apart from flexibility to work from home on projects which do not require a presence in the office. There are companies which have set up crèches within their campuses. But there is a mixed response to this. NIIT Technologies used to have this facility, but found that employees are more comfortable keeping their babies at home or at a crèche located near their homes.

Tapping Non-engineering Graduates
There are around 85% of institutions which churn out non-engineering graduates, and which are not on the radar of any IT company as everybody is eyeing the creamy layer of leading engineering colleges with the exception of some. Sharing her experience of graduates, Gurjar of Infosys Technologies says “We started hiring BScs in the last two years, and had tremendous success. We have a separate program which lasts for three months. We have a target of 3,000 such people for 2008.” Do all IT jobs require a BE? If no, then why is so much energy spent in hiring and training them. According to Subash AK Rao, director, Human Resources, Cisco India, (The company intends to grow to a manpower strength of about 10-12,000 from the current 4,000 in three years time), “A lot of jobs do not require a four year engineering degree.” He suggests that it is absolutely the right thing to do to approach candidates who have the right abilities, certain analytical skills, and arithmetic ability, and then train them up for any specific skills that are required for the job. According to him, “The use of computer science graduates to do some basic programming is not the best use of talent and, in fact, will lead to frustration.”

“A lot of jobs do not require a 4 year engineering degree. Approach candidates who have the right abilities, analytical skills and arithmetic ability, and then train them up for specific skills that are required for the job” Subash AK Rao, director, HR, Cisco India	“With the BPO industry growing at a rapid pace and the absence of homegrown middle managers, it posed a challenge to companies that had to balance people growth to meet revenue growth” Shanmugam Nagarajan, co-founder and chief people officer, 24/7 Customer	“In an industry which is hit by talent crunch, it is a strategic imperative for organizations to create focused programs for accelerated development of people” Piyush Dutt, associate VP, HR, HCL Comnet

Page(s)   1  2  3  4