Growing the Pie

Traditionally, most people selection in India (be it civil services or

admission to premier engineering colleges like IITs) has been based on the

method of elimination. The underlying principle being, when you eliminate the

rest, those who remain are the best. There is nothing wrong with that

proposition except that it assumes that supply will always be more than demand.

Most IT companies also started that way but soon hit a ceiling. The few

selected campuses that they were going to could not give them the number of

engineers they needed. Being a globally competitive business, lowering the

standard was out of question.

That is when a few pioneering companies as well as industry body Nasscom,

started looking at how they could tackle this challenge effectively. The first

step was to go to the next level of colleges and if they found some candidates

who were good but lacking in a few skill areas, provide them training to bridge

that gap. This, while still practiced by many, could still not meet the rising

demand. After all, the IT industry, all the concerns around its linear model

notwithstanding, will continue to grow by absorbing more and more people for the

foreseeable future.

HR departments in large companies, so far focused on hiring, training and

retaining people were mandated to find out what they could do to expand the pool

of talent: growing the pie rather than just take a bigger slice of the existing

pie. Many new ideas emerged: going to newer campuses was of course obvious;

reaching out to newer sections such as women who have taken a break from work,

differently-abled people was another; training science graduates to make them

ready for IT work was yet another. The latest seems to be helping the institutes

to train their students according to industry needs, through faculty management

programs.

Some of them have worked; some have not been successful. But one thing is for

sure-this work, which started as a new, peripheral initiative to supplement the

core HR function has become a core function itself. Seeing the early results,

tier-2companies have also joined the bandwagon.

Today, the HR strategy of India IT Inc is as much about expanding the pool as

it is about regular HR functions.

How Big is the Pie?



India has a billion people. Yet, nowhere is the proverbial war for talent as

intense as it is in India. India's top major competitive advantage continues to

remain talented workforce, but as companies grow and expand their operations

both within India and overseas, getting the right talent is becoming

increasingly difficult for companies. This is true of both campus hires as well

as lateral hiring. For lateral hires, the easier way some companies

(particularly new entrants to the market) have adopted is “poaching” which has

created some bad blood between competing companies. For fresh hires, the

situation has improved in terms of employability, but it remains far from

satisfactory. The reasons for this are manifold. Outdated curriculum, lack of

any planned training on developing skill-sets beyond the core engineering

domain, mainly soft skills, resulting in a large chunk of graduate engineers

being rendered unemployable.

According to AICTE, the total annual intake of students in 1,346 degree

engineering colleges is about 439,689. Large companies are putting serious

effort to expand that pool-in the short run by training science graduates to

take up work hitherto performed by engineers; in the medium run by academic

partnerships; and in the long run by encouraging mathematics and science

education in schools. There are companies like Wipro, Infosys and others who

have taken up the initiative to train faculty members in select engineering

colleges so that they are in a better position to train their students, and make

them more employable. A beginning has been made but real success will take some

time. Effort is on to grow the pie, rather than just grow the slice. Some

indications of shortage have started to emerge. A study done by IDC shows that

there will be a shortage of 1 lakh networking professionals alone in the next 3

to 5 years. According to Piyush Dutt, associate VP, Human Resources, HCL Comnet,

“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.”

“We started hiring BScs in the last two years, and had tremendous success. We have a target of 3,000 such people for 2008” Nandita Gurjar, group head, HR, Infosys Technologies	“Much work is necessary in the less tangible areas of soft-skills such as management, communication and language-important elements of what comprises an 'industry-ready' or 'employable' resource” Ajay K Sharma, president and CEO, New Horizons

One curious thing has also happened. There has been a flight of a good chunk

of engineering talent to BPO companies where the minimum qualification is as low

as intermediate, and, in some cases, even class10. BEs from reputed engineering

colleges are providing technical support jobs which were traditionally done by

non-engineering graduates. Finding the reason for this is not so difficult. BEs

simply could not get into software/IT services jobs due to their failure to pass

the recruitment test-thereby bringing in the employability factor.

Hiring numbers are also impressive, and an indicator of the shape of things

to come. TCS inducted, trained, integrated and absorbed over 35,000 people

during 2007-2008 while making 22,451 campus offers for 2008-09 including over

4,000 science graduates. Accenture announced plans to hire 13,000 people in 2008

while Infosys plans to hire 25,000.

Employability is Key



Though the employability percentage has somewhat improved from what it was

four years ago, it is not sufficient to sustain the amount of growth the Indian

IT industry is witnessing. According to Rajasekharan SG, senior VP, Keane India,

“Employability has tremendously 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.”

An innovative program initiated by Wipro, aimed at faculty development is

Mission 10X (see box). The idea behind this initiative, according to Selvan D,

senior VP, Talent Transformation at Wipro, 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. He also laments the fact that there is no

structured faculty enablement program across the country. There is another

program from Infosys with similar objectives, called Campus Connect (see box).

Talking about the project, Nandita Gurjar, group head, HR, Infosys

Technologies says, “There was not much success and response to the program in

the first year, 2004, and, in fact, we got into a situation where we were told

by some universities that they were not interested, and that we should take care

of these students once we recruit them. But in 2005, we started seeing some

progress, and by 2006 there was acceleration of the programs and more and more

colleges came into its fold.” The interesting aspect was that the campus connect

trainees were free to apply for any company, not only for Infosys. Same with

Wipro. Companies are doing their bit but it would be more productive for similar

minded companies to come together and use their energies in a united manner.

Nasscom is another forum which has been at the forefront of trying to address

the issue but clear-cut data points on how far it has managed to succeed are

unavailable. According to Gurjar, “Infosys would be keen on such joint

initiatives.”

According to Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate VP & MD, Cadence Design Systems,

“Employability of India's engineering graduates is a key concern across the

industry ecosystem, as companies spend up to a year training new recruits.”

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 Â	“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

Developing Tomorrow's Managers



In the fast paced industry, companies are finding it difficult to keep in

step due to the inadequate number of middle level managers. The challenges are

many. According to Rosita Rabindra, executive VP, HR, NIIT Technologies, “We

have a bigger challenge at middle level for the simple reason that IT workers,

after three-four years begin to handle teams. This does not happen in any other

kind of industry. So, for a technical person, managerial skills do not come

naturally. Hence, there are programs these people are put through.” NIIT has a

SEED program to let employee transition from worker to manger apart from the

program run in collaboration with ISB. According to Nandita Gurjar of Infosys

Technologies, “Today, the concern is not of freshers, but of managing the middle

level as we are growing them too fast, and we have got into a panic mode because

of the boom and promoting them left, right, and center. This can do more harm

than good.” She adds that sometimes what is needed is just experience and also

senior managers to work with junior managers as mentors. HCL's Eagle's Nest

Program is aimed at identifying and grooming high performance managers. The idea

has been drawn from the qualities of an Eagle, and the program looks at

identifying managers who display a keen eye for excellence, vision,

fearlessness, tenacity, vitality, a nurturing and co-operative attitude and an

ability to soar high.

The middle level crisis has become crucial for the BPO industry. According to

Shanmugam Nagarajan co-founder and chief people officer of 24/7 Customer, “The

BPO industry is amongst the very few industries in India where the demand and

the role of the middle manager has emerged and evolved very rapidly in the last

few years. With the 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.” Some global players have also made their

entry into India eying the managerial training segment. Disney Institute, one of

the leading players in experiential training, leadership development,

benchmarking and cultural change for business professionals across the globe

entered into a tie-up with Saviance Technologies to bring -professional

development programs.

Tapping the Physically Challenged



According to statistics, there are around 6 mn physically challenged people

in the country, out of which a large chunk are well qualified and can be

employed in the IT/BPO industry if adequate measures are put in place. But there

are very few instances of tapping into this pool of talent. Gurjar of Infosys,

which incidentally is one of the largest employers of challenged people, says,

“We have clearly identified processes and the type of people who would be able

to do that job. We are very clear that we don't do this as a charity. They go

through the training like anybody else and we take all the steps to make sure

that these people are successful.” MphasiS, also through its program Project

Communicate, has made a beginning to tap the talent from this category.

The Outlook



There has to be a concerted effort on the part of all HR heads, Nasscom,

central, and state governments to address the issue of harnessing the talent in

India. Gurjar says, “The HR heads should concentrate on creating talent rather

than poaching them. We need to own the responsibility rather than pretending.”

Rosita Rabindra says, “People with good skills are still in short supply and all

the companies are trying to get the best talent. The cycle time to find people

is very high as the total base of people in that specific domain is very small.”

So, what is the solution? According to Ajay K Sharma, president and CEO, New

Horizons, “India does not lack in 'bodies'. And my belief is that as a people we

do not lack in talent either. Both from the desire to learn/upgrade and also in

terms of grasping ability.” So what is causing this gap? He says, “Clearly it is

our inability to train this willing and vast resource pool effectively. What is

needed is a concerted effort by all stakeholders-industry, government and

educationists-to identify skill gaps and put in place measures to reduce them.

On Employability Taking cognizance of the fact that talent is a critical differentiator for sustaining India's competitiveness in the global sourcing landscape, NASSCOM, in association with its member companies from the industries, has taken several initiatives and programs aimed at both creating suitable talent for the industry and also transforming the “trainable” workforce into an “employable” workforce. NASSCOM has taken the employment pyramid approach to better understand the industry's skills requirement and create specific education and development initiatives. The base of the pyramid represents simple technical skills (including entry level jobs in the BPO industry and vocational jobs like networking, hardware maintenance, etc). The middle stands for skills which are mainstream and account for the majority of the existing shortage in the industry, while the top of the pyramid, represents high-end technology skills (in areas such as bio-informatics, embedded software, product architecture, DSP, VLSI, program management and multimedia convergence), which are niche today, but will become mainstream in the near future. For the top of the pyramid, programs like setting up 20 new IIITs are in the pipeline; for middle of the pyramid, NAC Tech and setting up of IT/Engineering Finishing Schools and the IT workforce development initiative; for the bottom of the pyramid we are working with initiatives like NAC. Som Mittal president,Nasscom At the top end of the skill stack, which is where high-end jobs including R&D feature, NASSCOM has been working with multiple government agencies to facilitate interventions with an objective of expanding the pool of specialized professionals. Some of the significant interventions include working with Ministry of HRD to establish 20 new IIITs across the country. Each of these IIITs will be an autonomous institution and will set up through a Public-Private partnership between the MHRD, State Government and IT industry firms. Additionally, in order to promote the academia-industry research linkages, the Government of Delhi has decided to establish a Science & Technology Park and has asked NASSCOM to prepare the Detailed Project Report. NASSCOM, in collaboration with the DST is also looking at capacity building for post graduates and PhDs in IT technologies. To bring in a higher degree of focus, NASSCOM is institutionalizing these efforts under its Education Initiatives, which are designed to nurture better industry-academia interface and ensure better synchronization between the education system output and industry requirements. The initiative includes workshops and conferences, faculty sabbaticals, training programs, mentorship initiatives, and encouragement of research and survey-oriented projects. NASSCOM has also been working closely with bodies such as MHRD, AICTE, and UGC to standardize the curriculum and pedagogy. We are confident that with the support of all stakeholders and active partnerships with the government, we will be able to ensure a continuous supply of talent for the industry

 

AICTE Approved Engineering Colleges Intake Data

Sudesh Prasad



Sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in