The Hindu Business Line : As good as their skills...

Employees at all levels play an important role in transforming their organisations. Unfortunately, most Indian firms hitherto have done a mediocre (and even poor) job of honing and sharpening the skills and attitudes required to help employees become agents of change.

However, the information technology (IT) sector in the country has changed such a trend by providing continuous training to its employees to keep pace with the latest technology changes. Some large companies have budgeted around three to 10 per cent of their turnover to train their employees, point out experts who track the industry.

So why is such training required in the IT field, especially for middle-level managers?

The answer is simple enough. For those people working in this sunshine industry, constant training is required to update their technology knowledge. Without such an input they are bound to become obsolete. For the IT companies, it is certainly cost effective and easy to train a person on the latest technology than recruit fresh talent from the market.

Says Pramode Sadarjoshi, Director and Head, Human Resources, Cognizant Technology Solutions, "In the IT industry, which is characterised by constant change, it is critical for both individual employees and for the organisation to keep abreast of the latest technologies, domains, processes and management waves. Continuous training plays a crucial role in equipping employees with cutting-edge skills so that the organisation grows its competitive advantage, and in turn, provides value-added services to clients."

Today, customers expect vendors to recommend holistic, optimal, long-term IT solutions along with a quick turn-around for their day-to-day IT requirements. Under these circumstances, the absence of constant training would result in employees with redundant skills who are in no position to add value to themselves or the company's customers.

Sadarjoshi says that monetary incentives are no longer the prime driver for employees today. Of all the other motivating factors that are important to individuals, training ranks high in the list. IT employees are aware that they are as good as their skill-sets — therefore constantly staying on top of new technologies and domains, and adding value to themselves, becomes extremely important. "Training is the most direct way of doing this — so employees are more likely to stay in an organisation that provides immense learning opportunities," he says.

At Congizant, middle-level managers are provided with continuous learning and development opportunities. They are also groomed for senior leadership positions through a combination of technical and non-technical training. In addition to technical training, soft-skills such as leadership, team building and development, assessment centres, presentation skills, and workshops on self-awareness, are the other areas of focus.

Further, every employee of Cognizant needs to undergo 10 person-days of training to ensure that the quality of the workforce, and therefore that of the organisation, is continuously updated and enhanced.

Through this, the organisation combines a proactive readiness to service emerging demand patterns and also a reactive fulfilment of current skill requirements in the customer market.

Interestingly, Cognizant has made both the management development program (MDP) at IIM Bangalore and the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification mandatory for all mid-level professionals for promotion and career growth, he says.

The training at Cognizant also includes pursuing higher education such as MS in Software Engineering and MS in e-Business (the company has a tie-up with BITS, Pilani) and MBA (it has a tie-up with The British Open University). This organisation also regularly sends its middle and senior management professionals to IIM Bangalore for a customised two-week residential management development program (MDP).

Cognizant also provides opportunities for its middle and senior level professionals to undergo certifications in domains, processes and project management.

The company allocates approximately four per cent of its revenue for training across all levels. The mandatory MDP at IIM Bangalore, PMP certification and Assessment Centre alone costs the organisation more than Rs one lakh per employee per year at the mid-and-senior levels, says Sadarjoshi.

According to Anbu Rathinavel, Dean, Nalanda Corporate University at Polaris Software Lab, the need of the hour for mid-level managers is to keep up with the current trends in technology and its implications on the industry.

Training programs focussing on new technology helps in deploying the knowledge required to deliver value to a company's customers. "Apart from several other critical factors, providing opportunity to associates for upgrading their skills also plays a significant role in retention," he says. In Polaris, continuous learning is built into the career-path of all the associates.

And the company has consistently developed practices to keep its associates abreast with industry trends and "gain the competitive edge". Polaris follows a particular organisational learning framework called `Prospect'. The skill upgrade is part of the framework focussing on new and emerging technologies, where the advantages and risks involved in a technology are discussed in detail with respect to a domain in consideration. The programme also features steps to imbibe new technologies into a new project.

According to Dr Rathnivel, programmes focusing on new technologies are made mandatory, depending on their criticality to the core business of the company. Managers working on projects that have potential for new technology insertion are required to attend programs titled `New/Emerging Technology' and `Methodology for New Technology Insertion'. This approach is important to ensure that "we are ready, when the need arises for the switch to new technology — be it customer driven or technology driven," he adds.

Giving a different perspective on training, Sudarsanam Swamy, a specialist in Oracle language and working in an IT company in the US, says that technology update mostly depends on an individual.

Today, corporates employ people only based on their aptitude and flexibility in adapting to new technologies rather than getting "branded specialists".

And hence, training in "quality" is a major initiative taken by most firms including Six-Sigma, CMM and other industry standards. Top notch professionals in the IT majors firmly believe that it is possible to keep quality standards among employees at the work place rather than imparted at the college level.

For many companies six-sigma is their quality standard and an intensive training is given to their staff from day one of their inception into various projects.

"Managers should act as role models to handle projects and corporate entities expect them to be mentors rather than just lead a team. The middle level managers, particularly, are expected to behave more as mentors rather than just manage people. To get things done using the right people and right technology, they should have enough knowledge to run the show in the right way," adds Swamy.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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