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The changing role of HR professionals

Kiran Karnik

From focus on recruitment and in-service training, human resource professionals now need to broaden their horizons and be outward rather than inward focussed. The transition from locating talent to retaining talent has now moved to creating talent.

WHILE SOME young men, on the brink of starvation, desperately look for work, employers elsewhere look — with almost similar desperation — for appropriate persons to fill tens of thousands of vacancies. That this should happen in the same country is odd enough; however, what is more striking is not the known urban-rural difference, the clichéd India-Bharat divide, but the vast differential within educated urban India. Even as unemployed graduates abound, others with the very same qualifications are chased by recruitment agencies and offered huge raises over already-high salaries. In the case of engineers, while some fresh graduates begin at over Rs.25,000 a month, others have difficulty in getting employment, even as industry bemoans a shortage. Clearly, the market is providing strong signals about the failure of our education system. It is not producing enough people with the skill-sets the economy needs.

Over the last decade, the Indian education system has gone through many changes. However, the overall regulatory framework has remained substantially unchanged, with a continuation of the philosophy of control, standardised norms, and bureaucratic rules. There has been some expansion — mainly through private institutions in the case of professional education — but quality has declined. A few institutions have earned a good reputation, but the average quality is inadequate and a huge number are of abysmal quality. Many of the steps required to correct this will have an impact only in the medium to long term. Meanwhile, there is need and scope for industry to play a major role in creating short-term solutions that will meet its needs.

There has been much talk of industry-academia collaboration. However, till recently, examples of this were few and far between. Now, in the last few years, there have been many initiatives and more are in the pipeline. The IT industry has been at the forefront of this effort. While it continues to support education at the grass-roots level, particularly through work in primary schools in rural areas, collaboration with institutions of higher learning is growing. This industry now employs over 1.3 million people and last year its revenue was about $30 billion with a potential to grow by about 25 per cent and touch revenues of $80 billion in 2010. Current projections indicate that by 2010, the IT industry alone may face a shortfall of 500,000 professionals, unless proactive steps are taken. Sadly, of the large number of engineering and other graduates being churned out every year, only about 10 per cent are employable in the IT industry. Most are unsuitable because of a lack of soft skills, particularly communication skills, which are essential for industries like IT. This could seriously stymie India's economic growth, even as we lose the opportunity of large-scale job creation. Immediate as well as long-term measures are needed to tackle this problem.

In the long term, radical reforms are essential if we are to compete globally. We need to reform the education system, and free it from the stifling control of governments and other regulating bodies, so that institutions have flexibility on fees, salaries, and curriculum, among other things. They need to be detached from any political influences and control. It is necessary to make teaching an attractive career option. Many alternative approaches must be encouraged.

Special Education Zones

One of these could be to adapt the Special Economic Zone concept (deregulation and removal of restrictions) for education, with the creation of Special Education Zones. As an experimental measure, an institute could be permitted to run on a model where there is no ceiling on the fee charged, as long as free education and adequate support is offered to a fixed percentage of students who meet the entry requirements. While government investments in higher education are essential, it is clear that budgetary constraints will not enable the kind of massive investment that is needed, especially when there are other critical social sector and infrastructure needs, including primary education and literacy. Encouraging private investment in education — whether through philanthropy or as a financially viable proposition — is, therefore, necessary. This would be better than the insidious commercialisation that is now under way.

In the short term, we have to think of ways to groom the qualified students in an effort to make them `employable' in the industry. NASSCOM has been working with Prof. Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras to explore the possibility of 3-4 month courses in a "finishing school" for IT professionals. This will add 20-25 per cent people to the `employable' pool. Meanwhile, a BPO certification for entry-level employees (NASSCOM Assessment of Competence) is all set for an operational rollout. This will evaluate candidates on seven identified basic skills required of BPO employees, including keyboard skills, communication, articulation and presentation, in addition to teamwork. The NAC pilot has been completed. The test will shorten the recruitment process; more importantly, it will provide feedback and thus enable candidates to improve in areas where their score indicates inadequacies. It will also enable aspirants from all over the country to appear for the test, thereby enlarging opportunities for individuals, and the recruitment-universe for companies.

NASSCOM, with the support of the industry, has been working on a broader IT Workforce Development initiative, to engage academia on a sustained basis through faculty development programmes, mentorship of colleges, curriculum updates, and regular industry-academia interface. Faculty members spend time in companies to understand the industry's outlook, needs, and technologies so that they could sensitise the students to these developments. The Faculty Development Programme also addresses the need to develop soft skills, especially in communication and presentation. NASSCOM has signed MoUs with the University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education to take forward these initiatives, and has already run 15 programmes across India, primarily in Tier II colleges, providing inputs to about 500 faculty members. NASSCOM's annual HR (Human Resource) Summit, on this week in Chennai, takes this process further by bringing together three key stakeholders: industry, academia, and government.

The growing engagement of industry with academia requires a major re-orientation in the traditional role of HR in the corporate world. From focus on recruitment and in-service training, HR professionals now need to broaden their horizons and be outward rather than inward focussed. The transition from locating talent to retaining talent has now moved to creating talent. HR professionals have to identify and constantly review the requirement of skill-sets for employees, and work with educational/training institutions so that these are inculcated. Attitudes, values, and motivation of employees have become more important than ever, and HR professionals have not only to work on sophisticated tools to gauge these, but also on ways of integrating them into college curricula. This requires that they establish a close relationship, a partnership, with the academic community. Often, this may mean evolving new learning modules and joint teaching of courses.

Human resources are India's biggest asset. Once considered a liability, our large population and its growth rate have resulted in a demographic structure (with about 50 per cent of the population below 25 years of age) that provides an unique competitive advantage. However, to capitalise fully on this opportunity, we need to ensure high-quality education and appropriate skill-sets. While much needs to be done by government and the universities, HR professionals in industry have a major role and a big challenge. From a useful service function, they can now occupy centre stage and be the key drivers that create business value for their company and economic gain for the nation. Making our large population base an asset and adding value to excellent raw material: this should be the new role for HR professionals.

(The writer is president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies.)

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