SKILLS OR PINK SLIPS - CORPORATE MANTRA

The first signs of subprime impact on the industry are cutting costs and reducing man-power. Organisations are using the recession to optimise resources. Earlier IT industry used to hire indiscriminately even when orders were not in pipeline. Now there is cautions approach everywhere. Rising costs have made organisations to think as to whether they want – skills or more experience. More weightage is given to skills and not mere experience. There are employees with several years of experience but their skills have remained like a junior staff. Organisations are now bold to take steps to weed out inefficient people and processes. If employees are not upgrading their skills, they are likely to get marching orders i.e., Pink Slips.
People have an assured career as long as they are sharpening their skills and are in touch with the emerging technology.
This introduction is sufficient to explain why skills are needed or pink slips are given.
The financial meltdown has a very bad news for US workers and the likely affected would be less skilled people.
Earnings per annum and likely % of workers to be laid off
1. Less than $30,000 - 23%
2. Between $ 30,000 to $ 49,999 - 17%
3. Between $ 50,000 to $ 99,999 - 11%
4. More than $ 1,00,000 - 8%
(Source : Rew Research Centre telephone survey)
The unbiased assessment made recently by Assocham is that 25% of Indian work force is likely to lose jobs, through trimming exercise. The affected will be mostly less skilled. This was critisised by the Govt. and therefore the report was withdrawn quietly.
As far as the employability skills are concerned, it is a sad story that only 10% of the graduates and 25% of the engineering graduates are employable. This is repeatedly emphasized by various studies.
K. Pandia Rajan, M.D. of Ma Foi says that “India is on a time-bomb and that the mismatch between jobs, skills and societal structures warrants urgent attention and reforms to get a grip on the impending crisis. The issue of employability has to be dealt with as an emergency”.
Our Indian universities are symbols of huge number of students with both mediocre teachers and students.
Indian Universities are supposed to be breeding ground for talented teachers to provide the role models for society. But the way academic world has been functioning does not augur well for the future of our country. It is no longer in a position to maintain its “holier than thou” approach as the mask of hypocrisy is falling very fast.
The mode of recruitment is defective and candidates with abysmally low levels of knowledge and unimpressive abilities are appointed as teachers. Accountability is the least honoured principle. This is not only applicable to colleges and universities but also the schools.
Former Vice Chancellor of Anna University Dr. E. Balaguruswamy’s candid remark that with poor current educational assessment system, corruption in colleges, with more than half of the Vice-Chancellors having a criminal background, “I find that students lack in all types of skills, there is no depth in knowledge. Even if we keep the communication and soft skills aside, they lack any understanding of the subjects,. This is where the education system needs to step in” is quite serious.
As regard the skills shortage that every industry is facing today, he was very clear, “We need more professionals everywhere but it needs to be planned properly. You cannot expand without consolidation, but what needs to be changed foremost is attitudes”
But Vivek Gambhir, Partner, India office of Bain & Company was optimistic that the present downturns rewarded strength also, by boosting the core competency, innovation and skills development.
Ramesh Thakur, the foundation director of Balsillie School of International Affairs suggest the following regarding skills development at University level :-
“Changing student profile – where previously education and employment came together in the ideal of a career, today it is becoming common place to think of multiple careers and periodic skill enhancement, leading to demand for lifelong learning opportunities and modules.
The shelf life of knowledge is also shorter than it used to be, which places a premium on critical analytical and problem – solving skills rather than acquired knowledge”.
Technical proficiency is pre-requisite for professions to have entry level. Apart from technical skills, “can-do-attitude” is a necessity. A senior H.R. manager of an IT firm says “Hire for attitude and Train for Skills” as the new mantra while recruiting freshers.
Apart from the core competent technical skills, the soft skills required may be summed up as follows.
The core technical skills and knowledge on subjects are called the hard skills with this soft skills need to be developed.
a) Communication Skills : Employees are required to posses superior communication skills that go-hand –in –hand with the technological knowledge. It is on a one to one basis, e-mail and telephonic communication. Most of the students, especially from rural area do not have adequate communication skills.
b) Inter-personal skills : The cordial relationship with collegues in the organisation is very important.
c) Team skills : Any organisation to be successful needs to emphasise the importance of team-work. Employees need to develop team skills. Individual excellence is important but working as a team alone will bring about the desired result.
d) Presentation skills : When a project / proposal or suggestion has to be explained one needs to have sound, cogent, convincing presentation skills.
e) Leadership skills : Every employee needs to develop leadership qualities. India Inc. is now worried about shortage of leaders. A leader should focus on building self-directed teams coaching for success, and improvement and making meetings work. The leader should, at higher level, focus on building talent, culture, translation of vision and mission into organisational values and competencies, feel many corporate analysts.
The behavioural attributes like correct attitude, integrity and motivation are required.
Thus, a candidate for a job has to have the right technical skills and also the right “cultural fit” for the company. In other words the candidate should conform to the culture of the organisation which can happen with soft skills and sound technical competency.
Today the lack of employability is much more serious than lack of employment opportunities (it is estimated at 9%), as explained earlier. Satyanarayana, V.C. Andhra University said that meeting the growing demand for skilled professionals is going to be a “huge task” for the Indian higher education sector.
At higher position, there will be need for soft skills at higher levels.
v management, interpersonal and commercial awareness / market knowledge
v sales, marketing
v finance and accounting skills
v customer handling
v team-working and net working
v problem solving
When India’s human resources are expected to fulfil the global needs also, it is high time that our students from school level itself develop the soft-skills.
It is heartening to note that initiative is made by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) at some Govt. Schools to develop soft skills of students from 6th Standard onwards, to integrate them into the main stream when they enter college. The curriculum includes basic skills in self-management, communication, team dynamics, emotional intelligence, health and hygiene, values, laws, etiquette and other skills.
On a comparison of Chinese employees with Indians, Chinese were found to be relatively strong in hard skills or core technical knowledge but in terms of soft skills, Indians have an edge over them according to a recent study.
In the coming years, we will have huge number of graduates from leading colleges who will make India the leading country in technological advancements. But the big question is, if these graduates can represent themselves in India or at international level. A BCG study reveals that India will have about 1.3 million surplus of untrained and under educated people. The irony is that we will also fall short of real talent by about 5.3 million. We will have a surplus that we will not need and a deficit that we cannot fulfil.
Students community from schools to colleges should understand one thing very clearly – “Develop the Skills or Take the Pink slips – This is the Corporate Mantra”.