Technology will be a significant component of future jobs: Arvind Bali, CEO, TSSC

The dynamic field of technology is advancing every single day, which is leading to a skills gap. Capabilities and skills, that were once considered valuable, are quickly getting outdated and redundant. Therefore, employees and employers need to take skilling and reskilling thoughtfully in order to stay relevant in the emerging IT industry.Arvind Bali, CEO, Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC), spoke to Dataquest about the importance of upskilling in the technology ecosystem. 

DQ: How should the issue of talent transformation be ideally handled?

Arvind Bali: As India starts to enter the next phase of its growth, we need to ascertain our workforce capacity for the next five years. Technology is mutating at an unprecedented rate and identifying the gap in skill will be a significant proportion of the problem. Additionally, counselling and guidance for selecting job roles that provide holistic growth and development for the youth should be our mantra. We need to have a paradigm in place to quantify skill sets across industries. Skill training will play a huge pat in deciding the manpower availability for all sectors. Telecom will also benefit greatly from these changes. The industry players also need to start vocalising their requirements to the government to incorporate these demands into public policies and charters.

DQ: What about the issue of skilling and reskilling? How do Emerging/Deep Tech skills fit into all of this?

Arvind Bali: As the start-up craze envelops the country with shows like ‘Shark Tank’, we are creating a vision for young Indians to aspire to. Technology undoubtedly offers a level playing field for youth from diverse background to execute their models. Job in new technologies like 5G, AI/ML, IoT, drone, cybersecurity, blockchain and cloud will drive the maximum creation for new jobs. By reskilling/upskilling, we are enabling the current workforce to enhance their value proposition.

DQ: How should students who are passing out be prepared for the future?

Arvind Bali: Having one key technical/soft skill under your belt is a must for any young adult. We need to introduce at least one mandatory skill in the schooling curriculum. As I said before, start-ups are all the craze right now. We also need to foster an aura of entrepreneurship among a diverse range of youth namely, the unserved and underserved youth of society. A big part of growth also means inclusivity of people in the workplace and recognizing talent above all as a hiring factor. We can leverage technology and the digital boom to enact these and more such changes effectively at large scales.

Arvind Bali has also addressed the issue of skilling and reskilling at the DQ DeepTech event, and his entire talk on the same can be viewed here:

DQ: What kind of upgradation of skills have become a necessity off late?

Arvind Bali: The pandemic prompted us all to wear multiple hats to maintain business continuity. Firstly, soft skills like time management, leadership, interpersonal communication, and personal development all help create a better employee and lead to higher job satisfaction. Technology will also be a significant component of future jobs. Everyone will be dealing with some aspect of technology like data, programming, internet, and information technology. Job seekers need to have the right skills under their belt. 

DQ: Five trends that you foresee as far as reskilling in concerned?

Arvind Bali: There are many ways in which reskilling, or I should say skill development might change. Let me get some obvious answers out of the way first. We will see technology infusion in virtually all aspects of skilling. From online training to AI-based counselling and blockchain based certificates technology will embed itself into all aspects of skilling. Second, we are moving towards a credit system to qualify the capabilities of our youth. This will be a big help and change how we incorporate merit into a jobseeker’s profile. The third thing I feel will be more of a nuanced change i.e., government should create a provision for mandatory reskilling of manpower in the unorganized sector. Now this might come in tranches and be diffused across various initiatives, but the overall outcome will be a more standardised workforce. Fourth, we will see an increase in industry/academia participate in skill certification. Services like Upgrad and Coursera have already onboarded the likes of IBM and Google into their portfolio. We are sure to see more of such collaborations between industry, academia, and skilling bodies. Last but not the least, we will see a shift in perspective when it comes to skill-based jobs. Currently, blue-collar is a term reserved for hard, laborious, and mundane tasks. I believe it will soon change to a capability-based thinking as people start recognizing the relevance of a talented/skilled workforce and they will be paid equal if not more than other jobs acquired through conventional education. We don’t have to look too far for examples. In US and western European countries, we see technicians/plumbers/gardeners be paid highly as their value is skill-based. We are surely heading for such an ecosystem, and this is the best time for young people to skill/reskill/upskill themselves.