Educating for a Cause

Hiring and retaining good employees is the chief concern of every company
today. Limited growth opportunities, role stagnation, dissatisfaction in
salaries, etc are some of the reasons why retention rate is at an all time low.

Changing Conditions

While worldwide some companies are firing people to cover their losses,
others are opting for better options, like opening training institutes to impart
the requisite skill-sets.

AMD recently announced that it is putting off 1,600 jobs globally. As per the
company, the move to cut about 10% of its 16,800 employees is part of a
cost-cutting plan. Dell also announced to layoff 8,800 employees worldwide in an
effort to make the company more competitive and profitable. Google has evicted
300 people in DoubleClick; Motorola, 2,600 jobs globally, and the companys
total lay-off since 2007 is about 10,000; Birlasofts score is 100 and TCS
sacked 1,200 employees. While the recent economic slowdown can be partially held
responsible for the mass sacking, one of the reasons for companies to ask
employees to leave was the lack of appropriate skills.

In such a scenario, companies that understand what their employees want and
need in the workplace, and make a strategic decision to proactively fulfill
those requirements would become the dominant players in their respective
markets.

Whats Being Done

Devendra Taneja, director, PC Solutions, Delhi established Institute of
Network Technology (INT) in 1994 as a solution to beat the crunch of trained
manpower. This was the time when PC Solutions was an integration partner of
Novell for networking projects. Specific brand technology knowledge was needed
for professionals to effectively execute networking projects. Back then,
networking was a relatively new concept. It was very difficult to get
trained/familiar resources. Fortunately Novell had a structured model to deliver
such trainings and considering PC Solutions was a leading partner, we were
granted this status. We looked at it as an option to create trained resource
pool option, rather than train in house persons only, said Taneja.

At HCL Career Development Center, the training programs and modules are
designed by industry experts and are highly customized as per the needs of the
industry. Programs from HCL provide in-depth understanding of technology and
give hands-on experience on cutting edge technologies, says Rajendra Kumar,
executive VP, HCL Infosystems.

The center offers specialized programs in IT hardware, networking and
software with an aim to transform amateurs into industry ready professionals.
Elaborating on the center, Kumar says, Our programs have been designed to cater
to the needs of different individuals like fresh graduates and professional who
are looking to upgrade their skills. We also have tie-ups with industry veterans
like Microsoft, Red Hat, Oracle and Prometric. Cisco Networking Academy is
another innovative education initiative that delivers information and
communication technology skills.

The Future

Even though many software companies provide training to fresh graduates once
they are inculcated into the system, such training institutes will help
graduates and professionals increase their skill sets in specific domains, which
they want to choose as a career. Whether or not the concept of training youth
for a cause works out is yet to be seen, but as of now it opens up newer
opportunities for youth to grab and for the IT industry to leverage.

DQC News Bureu

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