Talent Management

Dear Readers,

Pls. check out the new posting of Talent Managment wherein i've tried to look at from macro-perspective and shared my thoughts on "Unconventional Talent Management". Am sure you would enjoy reading this update.

India is a country with a population of more than 1.1 Billion and it is projected that we will surpass China, the most populous country in the world now, by 2025. India is also a young country with more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 years and two thirds under the age of 35 years.

However, on the flip side of it, the gross enrollment ratio in India is 15% of its population and that’s what is available as a Talent pipeline across the Country.  The worlds average GER is 24% and its 18% among the developing economies.  While 15% is a big number considering the population, we all know that not every one of them is employable and the employable Talent could be just 25%-26% from the 15%. 

So it is that small pie that most of us are looking at and obviously the demand is outstripping the supply. 

Shortage of Talent – is it a reality or myth

We’ve opened up the Indian Market for Multinational players to set up their shops.  Our industrial growth has gone up drastically. We’ve seen IT revolution taking place in the 1990s.

Our GDP was hovering in the lower range and it was just 3.5% till 1980.  Subsequent to our Liberalization policy in 1992, we have grown consistently year on year. We have recorded more than 7%, the highest GDP rate after our Independence, for 3 subsequent years from 1994-95 to 1996-97. We’ve recorded highest growth rate of 9.7 in 2007-08.  We came out relatively unscathed even during the last recession.  It’s estimated that we’ll record 7% growth in 2012 and our economy is on good track.

We know that all these activities provided lot of impetus and fuelled our economic growth and it also lead to huge demand for talent.  While the demand has grown in multi-fold, the amount and quality of supply has remained the same, resulting in gap in demand and supply.

Demand and supply is the Universal law that governs almost every aspect in life.  Demand and supply has got direct relationship.  When demand outstrips the supply, the cost always goes up. For instance, we would have seen the global trends of Precious metal, crude oil, stocks or real estate or anything going up or down purely and directly in proportion to the demand.

Hence the Talent pool, one of the 5 Ms cannot be an exception. 

Turning the talent management approach little unconventional to tap the remaining 75% will make all the difference and there would not be real shortage of talent in India.

Necessity is the mother of invention- Unconventional Talent Management

Looking at the small pie of 25% of the employable talent is not going to help and we need some novel approach and unconventional Talent Management to tap the talent from the untapped big pie, 75%.  Few have already invented the wheel that I would like to talk about it.

     1. Catch them Young and train them: A model adopted and tried successfully in manufacturing set-ups more than decade ago and much before the buzzword, unconventional Talent Management.  There are Companies that have tried out hiring 10^th and 12^th pass outs in large numbers and got them trained to the required technical skill level successfully. 

      2. Talents in Tier-2/3 Cities -  Incredible Talent without Polish:

I’ve first heard this wording from Dr. Narendra Jadhav, Member of Planning commission in a NASSCOM Meet recently.  Though the meaning is quite obvious, those of us who have been to Tier-2/3 cities and interested with the students over there could very much relate to the meaning in true sense.  

In my experience, I’ve seen these students to be academically bright with impressive marks/ scores, very studious, sincere, dedicated, and very good attitude. 

But the polish they lack is basic employability skills in terms of basic English communication skills, interview and GD skills etc.,

3.     College – Corporate partnering:

This can be a kind of Train the Trainer model wherein you evolve a curriculum for students and get the faculty trained who in turn would train their students.  A similar kind model was adopted (for BPO Operation) in one of the Organizations where I worked about 5-6 years ago.  This model was evolved and run successfully with real quantifiable results. 

Whether you recruit all of them or not, end of the day, you are creating a pool of employable and trainable talents who would be able to find a job on their own. Having a centralized body that can standardize the curriculum (IT/KPO/BPO) will help.  Otherwise, it’s likely that the college / students may find themselves having more than one Curriculum to study.

4.     Differently-Abled Talent pool:

This is another Talent pool with lots of scope for hiring and engagement.

I remember the first job fair that we organized about 7 years ago in close association with Ability Foundations for Differently abled people.  The response was huge. They all demonstrated tons of determination to participate and to prove their mettle.  Lots of Corporates participated in real true sense. 

Some kind of awareness and hand-holding in terms of how to engage this talent pool will be indeed helpful. 

5.     House wives

In one of my earlier organizations where I worked, this model was evolved and pilot run was done for BPO projects by involving the housewives of employees working in one of the large manufacturing set-ups.  The production set-up was done in their employees’ colony.  The job was deskilled and training was imparted.  This model indeed turned out to be very successful. 

6.     Rural Talents:

This model was also initiated in the same BPO organization about 5-6 years ago. This too turned out to be very successful by deskilling the jobs and continuous training.  

I’ve just briefed whatever approaches that I’ve heard of / that we’ve tried ourselves. They are probably just tip of the ice berg and we may expect lot more novel approaches in future. What is said as impossible is being tried and accomplished successfully elsewhere in the world.  For instance, I’ve heard of an IT company that hires school drop-outs and trains them.  A very bold move!!!

Unconventional Talent Management is going be the order of the day in future.

Governments Role in Talent Management:

The Indian government is planning to double the GER from 15% to 30% before 2020.  The 12^th five year plan which is underway will focus on three Key Areas and Education & Skill Development is one of them (the other two are Health and Infrastructure.) (Source Dr. Narendra Jadhav, Member of Planning commission).  This gives lot of hope for the quality of education & Skill and the size of the talent pool to grow in line with the Business growth.

India as Global Talent Provider

The average age of Indian population by 2020 is expected to be around 29 years whereas it would be 39 years for China, 48 for Japan, 37 for USA and 48 for Europe.  Harnessing our Talent with required education and skills would become a Big Advantage for India and we could indeed become a Talent provider for the Globe.

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