Building World-class Talent

At a recent seminar in New Delhi organized by the Foundation of Indian Industrialists and Economists, Union minister for labour Sahib Singh Varma made a valid point–that in all

the hype caused by the entry of multinationals and the success of Indian software exports, the focus should not be lost for creating a larger talent pool of educated and highly-skilled manpower in the country, thereby generating employment on a larger scale and improving the social fabric of the nation.

This is an important point to consider for the Indian IT industry as it continues to embrace labor arbitrage and BPO to make India the global back-office–how do we develop the skills needed to feed the fast-growing needs of the export-oriented industry and ensure we retain the highest quality of manpower in the country?

“Much of the long-term plan lies sacrificed at the altar of more MCA courses and bachelors’ degrees, which do little to meet the need of higher IT skills” Ganesh Natarajan

Looking at the expansion of the manpower pool first, one should go back to the recommendations made by the Indiresan Committee that worked under the patronage of the Convener of the Prime Minister’s IT Task Force a few years ago. With the challenge of adding a million-plus professionals to the available pool to meet the $80-billion revenue target before the industry, we had come up with a number of suggestions, including the setting up of more higher education institutions, the extensive use of e-learning and addressing the paucity of funds in the formal education sector through more vibrant industry-institution partnerships. Much of this has been sacrificed at the altar of more MCA courses and more university bachelors’ programs in IT, which have done very little to meet the need of higher skills.

With the lack of a national initiative to provide the skills needed by the industry, the leading companies continue to invest in comprehensive training programs and hiring of laterals from other companies, thereby adding to manpower circulation but doing little to increase the talent

pool. As the markets pick up after a dull couple of years, there will be a need for sagacity and partnership between government, industry and academia to revisit the core needs and provide skills to a larger cross-section of the country’s vast population.

In an era of resource paucity, retention becomes a major challenge for HR chiefs and some innovative methods are being used to make this happen. Our own company relies on the ‘Five F’ framework to keep the teams oriented towards a common goal and our success in having attrition levels that are consistently below industry averages bears testimony to this fact. The recognition that young professionals will be enthused to give their best for a ‘Fast, Focused and Flexible’ organization, if the environment is ‘Friendly’ and provides ample opportunities to enjoy work and have ‘Fun’, is what makes the ‘Five F’ framework so effective. It is important to note, however, that all talk of open door policies and flexible compensation plans fail to have a meaning if a consistent set of initiatives are not put in place for planning, moderating and channelizing desired human behavior.

Unarguably, the days have gone when a good salary and job security provided the keys to employee motivation and retention.

Hiring and retaining the best needs skills that cannot simply be delegated to the human resource function. Every CEO worth his/her salt must be able to provide the ‘Human’ leadership that is needed to build high-performance teams and demonstrate that the term CEO stands for being a ‘Clairvoyant, Evangelist and Orator’. As this year’s DQ Top 20 has shown, the 



IT industry continues to be an exciting and fast-changing place to be in and it will continue to need outstanding
leaders and motivated teams to take the country forward to its tryst with a global destiny.

Ganesh Natarajan



The author is deputy chairman and MD of Zensar Technologies and chairman of Nasscom’s SME Forum for Western India