RSSWhats the talk about Indian Talent !!!
In December of last year i wrote a post highlighting the Nasscom & Mckinsey report it indicated clear diconnect between the demand & supply in the talent market, Here is an quote from the same – "According to the Mckinsey report 2005, "The country will need 2.3 million professionals to meet the $60 billion export revenue target by then. But the present education system will be able to churn out only 7,00,000. Besides 2.3 Million, it will provide indirect employment to another 6.5 million workers"
Recently Wipro's Chairman Azim Premji downplayed the impact of staff shortages in India, saying they won't hold back the continued growth of the country's outsourcing industry. The first piece of thier solution seems to be hiring people sciences not necessarily engineers as highlighted by Mr.Prathik Kumar during the quaterly analyst call – "The one thing which we have done consciously this year is that we have shifted to a more even spread of rookies joining into the company instead of all of them coming in at one point one time of the year, and that we have been able to make that transition fairly comfortably. What we are also doing in addition is that we are experimenting with non-engineering talent pool as well, so these are the bachelor of science graduates and this year just to help you understand, we would be taking in between 1700 to 2000 people in our software business, taking them through intensive training program and get them ready to be deployed on our assignments within the organization." This would work fine for the Freshers or rookies but that is only 50% of the hiring plan they still need to hire another 50% of laterals/experienced resources from the competitive market. Which for sure is not going to be easy.
On the same topic there are a couple of blog posts on the on the Infosys blog – Think Flat…the posts highlights a huge problem that most hiring organisations are faced with today, i completly concur with the theme out of my hiring experiences. In the first post, i think it must have been written in the immediate heat of frustration is does reflect in the post….i think i have had so many of those that nowadays it doesnt even impact me.Some excerpts from the posts.
Recently I had set up a phone interview with a candidate who did not pick up the interview call. He called me 45 minutes later saying in a nonchalant manner, "Oh, I had a missed call from this number so I am returning the call." When I informed him of the missed interview, his response was a surprising "I was driving". When I asked him whether he was aware of the interview time, he responded "Yes, but I was on another call". So within a matter of 45 seconds he had given me two different reasons for missing the interview, neither of which sounded convincing by any means.
What is disconcerting is that such scenarios are no longer becoming the exception but the rule as Indian workers realize that the balance of power lies with them.
But unprofessionalism can't be good for either side in the long run.
These days you can be sure that you have actually filled an open position only when the employee shows up on Day 1.
Attracting the right talent (not just the right diploma/degree) in emerging economies is a challenge for all global companies (with Indian Origins or otherwise). It becomes even more frustrating for companies unfamiliar with the local situation or with a weaker brand locally. And in India, as other growth industries such as retail accelerate hiring, the supply of skilled talent will only become tighter.
But this is exactly where "thinking flat" comes in. Companies have to look beyond traditional organizational structures and recruiting models. They can consider alternatives such as hiring talent where best available, stretching reporting & collaboration lines across continents not just for the senior management levels as is already common, but even deeper in the organization. Or, they can hire internationally mobile professionals.
The most important focus for the Indian IT Services community is "The Talent Supply Chain" – Sourcing, hiring , training & retention. We need to look at innovative ways of solving this problem. This problem is particularly acute for smaller companies as they have to contend among other things with the brand value problem also. Also while i think of this i remember a slide from tom peters slide deck 1 good developer is 1000X times more productive than a regular developer….Also the need for a change in the economic model of the Services industry to start looking at deliveries or solutions rather than counting the number of bodies thrown at a problem.
