Data Science is a key requirement

Srinivas Rao K, Director, Human Resources, SAS India weighs in on the new connotations of re-skilling and up-skilling as he lets us in on how the company is steering workforce transformation from acquiring new-age skills, hiring to performance, productivity to retention

Employees need to have a detailed understanding of market trends and be more agile

Talent transformation to SAS is binding the potential and skills of employees to help them reach their optimum while accomplishing strategic business objectives for the organization. With today’s predominant uncertainty and unpredictability of the business environment, employees need to have a lot more detailed understanding of market trends and be more agile and better disposed to match these, both at an individual and professional level. This new part requires HR to take on new responsibilities: anticipating critical workforce trends, helping to shape and execute business strategy, identifying and mitigating people-related risks and regulations, enhancing workforce performance and productivity, and offering new HR solutions and services to help the company grow. We take important measures in all these areas so that we achieve our goals of workforce transformation through workforce planning, talent acquisition, talent development, and management.

A new skilling mindset keeps both a workforce and a company agile

With the world around us changing so rapidly we will have to alter what we do, how we do and the process involved. With AI, ML, and Predictive Analytics gaining traction, there is a gap in many organizations and so the need for up-skilling arises. To bring the skills they need to their workforce, today’s HR leaders must rethink professional development programs and look into personalized learning courses, skill-specific workshops, or company-sponsored degrees or certifications to meet their needs. They also need to take into consideration the upsurge in remote work because of Covid-19, likely investing more in online rather than instructor-led learning opportunities.

Organizations typically think of re-skilling because an employee may fit well in a team and have marketplace or company knowledge that would be difficult to replace. To keep that employee, the company just needs to up-skill them to match new systems and new capabilities. Re-skilling may involve obtaining a new degree, certification, or education in a different field or area of expertise.

A new skilling mindset keeps both a workforce and a company agile by ensuring learning initiatives are relevant to future business objectives and tailored to the needs of learners. This is simply the new reality—no business will survive for long without re-skilling and up-skilling initiatives driven by a new skilling strategy. By regularly identifying what skills will be needed in the future and which of those employees currently possess, organizations can build more thoughtful, continuous skilling programs to effectively develop those abilities in their workforce.

Employee “health and safety” is a key ingredient in talent retention

The pandemic has impacted all spheres of HR activities across all organizations, hiring, and attrition not being an exception. We at SAS continuously work on innovating new methods in retaining our existing staff and hiring a new set of competent talent from the external market.

We ensure retention by maintaining flexibility, addressing compensation, improving communication, and focusing on career development & training needs, and by providing a flexible working and work-from-home options. Employee Health and safety have become one of our key ingredients in talent retention.

SAS has also deployed several hiring strategies to cope with challenges and keep the recruiting operations going through SAS alumni, employee referrals social media, and our internal and external job boards. This has helped us to hire competent resources through our ex-colleagues and referrals.

SAS is hiring consultants and experts with knowledge of some of the latest technologies like Analytics, Cloud, ML, and AI. We are also engaged with universities and colleges to prepare students for data science opportunities which is a key requirement in industry today.

We take important measures in all these areas so that we achieve our goals towards workforce transformation by workforce planning, talent acquisition, talent development, and management.

The importance of additional skills

If job dissatisfaction leads to moonlighting, we make sure employees are happy with the job profile, opportunities, or career growth. We take special care so that employees get additional skills or indulge in work profiles they are more passionate about within the organization.

However, we have a policy in place that prohibits moonlighting of employees and take strict actions against the employees taking up a second job. We keep an eye out for certain indications and take disciplinary action if it starts impacting the company.

Fortunately, from a hiring standpoint, SAS has never encountered fraud interviews as all our interviews are multiple-level video interviews.

By Pratima Harigunani

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in