HR learning: 28 Nov, 2016

1.

The art of biznology: Creating business success with tech learning

Learn the secret of leveraging technology learning to align the L&D agenda with business objectives

Biznology, a portmanteau that fuses business and technology, is an art of how organizations are leveraging technology to create a business impact. There exists a common misconception around what a technology organization is. Most traditional sectors tend to believe they are not a technology organization and hence “Biznology” does not impact them. But this myth is getting broken and organizations are now realizing that each of them is leveraging technology in some or the other way and hence staying on top of them is not a choice but an essential requirement to survive. In this context, it is only learning that can empower organizations to achieve this and the key to it is again, technology. 

2.

Hack to the Future A Gamified Digital Experience

Capt. Shantanu Chakravorty talks about the exciting world where learning is gamified.

In his talk, Capt. Shantanu Chakravorty discusses various projects and interventions, at Cognizant and beyond, that aim to provide a gamified learning experience to learners. Various layers that help design the experience, and measure the results are discussed, and several interesting concepts like Near Field Communication, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Social Media scores etc. are explained. Capt. Shantanu makes an important differentiation between a game and the concept of gamification, and points out that the focus in the former is on the victory only, whereas in the latter, it is the journey and experience that matters..

3.

Genpact & Academia - Addressing 'War for Talent' together

Genpact has trained over 1500 resources and deployed them with various analytics clients across the globe. Genpact plans to take these collaborations to the next level by engaging academicians and researchers as consultants for challenging analytics projects.

Some perpetual issues that most corporates face are lack of ready talent to meet corporate requirement, attrition, and lack of sustainable solutions to address these issues. Should global organizations be affected by situations like this? Certainly, not! 

When there is a will, there is a way! Let’s have a closer look at Genpact’s innovative way of handling such situations. 

It is established that at present, the demand for data scientists is higher than their supply across the globe. The demand, especially for analytics talent, is increasing with every passing hour, and there is a constant war for talent. 

K.S Viswanathan, Vice President of NASSCOM, opines that the analytics sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26% over the next five years. NASSCOM estimates that Big Data Analytics sector in India will continue to grow at this rate for the next nine years, and will cross the $16 billion mark by 2025. It is a known fact that there are not enough data scientists to tackle so much of data. 

According to McKinsey, the US alone faces a shortage of 140,000–190,000 analysts and 1.5 million managers who can analyze Big Data. Also, a recent survey by Gartner on Big Data skill gap has revealed that about two-thirds of Big Data skill requirements are still not met. 

This tiny population of data scientists can be attributed to the lack of skill building courses and programs at universities for students from Engineering, Economics, Statistics, and Mathematics background, who are otherwise suitable for this role. Genpact understands this scenario and the limitations of the universities. Given the dynamic industry trends, fresh graduates find it extremely difficult to cope up with the present requirements in the analytics field. To meet the need of the hour in an innovative way, Genpact has tied up with universities in India as well as abroad. To combat this situation and deal with market volatility, new regulations, data expansion, advent of new technology, and cost pressure, Genpact decided to build talent with the help of academia than buying talents from the market. Building talent is an intelligent way to shape these young graduates to fit Genpact’s needs just like the pieces of a zig-saw puzzle fitting perfectly with each other when placed rightly. Keeping in mind the low pipeline of readily deployable “made talent” and the high attrition rate, building talent is a very effective way of dealing with such crisis. This saves a lot of cost and helps retain employees to a great extent. It is a win-win situation for the corporate, the academia, and the students aspiring to join the corporates.

HR News: 28 Nov, 2016

1.

Ramco bags HCM and Payroll implementation business for Brunei's largest bank

Ramco will implement its ERP solution across BIBD’s branches and 900+ employees spread in Brunei’s four districts. 

Brunei’s largest bank and flagship Islamic financial institution, Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam Berhad (BIBD) will integrate its business processes across the HR and enterprise resource planning functions with Ramco Systems’ Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrated with full suite Human Capital Management (HCM) and Global Payroll.

This will be Ramco’s first contract in Brunei, mark its entry into the country. The company hopes to strengthen its presence in South East Asia with this deal.

Ramco will implement its ERP solution across BIBD’s branches and 900+ employees spread in Brunei’s four districts. The scope of engagement includes finance & accounting, inventory and procurement, as well as core HR functions, time & attendance, payroll, training and recruitment.

Tahir Muzaffar, head of IT, Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam, says, “This transformative project will support our push into digitising our back office operations. This is part of our overall business strategy to streamline our services and processes for our customers, partners and employees.”

2.

Shell to move about 400 jobs from Glasgow to India and Malaysia

The staff of the oil company were told that the office would be closed and they were facing ‘involuntary severance’.

The oil company, Shell, recently announced its plan to shift nearly 400 jobs overseas as it looks to shore up its finances against persistently low oil prices, by hiring cheaper workers in the developing world.

The Anglo-Dutch company told 380 staff at its finance operations in Glasgow that the office would be closed and they were facing ‘involuntary severance’. The jobs will be moved over a 15-month period to locations such as Shell’s offices in Chennai in India and Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia.

The overall effect on Shell’s headcount will be negligible, although the firm has announced 12,500 job cuts since last year. The staff at the Bothwell Street office was informed about this decision by the senior managers at a meeting this month.

The company said that, this difficult decision was being taken in order to remain competitive and to improve efficiency and value for money across all its businesses and functions. Shell had in fact, signalled earlier this year that more staff could be affected, in an attempt to trim costs as rock-bottom oil prices continue to dent profits.

3. 

Microsoft to train over a lakh professionals on cloud

Microsoft tied-up with Simplilearn, to build a talent pool of over one lakh next generation cloud professionals by 2020.

In what is being seen as a huge skilling initiative, Microsoft recently tied-up with Simplilearn, a professional training company, to build a talent pool of over one lakh next generation cloud professionals by 2020. Simplilearn has been appointed as Microsoft’s silver learning partner for its suite of Microsoft Azure certification courses and will train IT professionals on Azure as cloud based applications are becoming more prevalent in today’s digital workplace.

As per forecast by Goldman Sachs, the cloud platform and infrastructure market roughly generates $21 billion in revenues and is expected to grow by 20 percent year after year to $43 billion by 2018. This rapid growth is paving tremendous demand globally for IT professionals with specialized cloud skills. The certification courses on Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions, Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure and Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions, are intended to equip learners with relevant skills through Simplilearn’s flexible online instructor-led training, e-learning and industry projects.

“In today’s digitally driven economy, there is a need for talent to own relevant and most updated skill-sets to be relevant in the work space. By partnering with Simplilearn, we are assured of talent in India that is skilled and up to date on cloud capabilities. Through this partnership, going forward, we will also implement similar upskilling programs for other Microsoft technology products in India”, said Manohar Hotchandani, Director – Business Development, Microsoft India.

Speaking on the partnership with Microsoft, Krishna Kumar, Founder & CEO, Simplilearn said, “We want to be instrumental in empowering professionals adapt to the changing digital technologies. We are excited about providing our learners with the best of training through comprehensive learning paths recommended by Microsoft. Together, we are confident about setting an ambitious mission of creating a large talent pool of one lakh Microsoft cloud professionals by 2020.”

HR Movements: 28 Nov, 2016

1.

InsideView appoints Revathy Reddy as HR director, for India operations

Reddy will be responsible for innovative HR systems and processes, delivering strategies and providing overall leadership to the HR function. 

InsideView, the San Francisco headquartered marketing intelligence solutions company recently announced the appointment of Revathy Reddy as the HR director for its India operations.

Reddy will be responsible for innovative HR systems and processes, delivering strategies and providing overall leadership to the HR function. She will also be responsible for InsideView India’s strategic framework for talent management and engagement, leadership development and further refining the organisation’s strong culture, aiming to make InsideView an employer of choice.

2.

Myntra gets Manpreet Ratia as chief people officer from Amazon

Ratia will now drive key HR functions at Myntra with a focus on talent acquisition and retention for various levels and verticals.

Myntra, a leading online fashion & lifestyle retailer, recently appointed Manpreet Ratia as its chief people officer and head of new initiatives. In his new role, Ratia will drive key HR functions, focussing on talent acquisition and retention for various levels and verticals. He will also drive new business initiatives, to help strengthen and grow the company’s leadership position in the online fashion industry.

An alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur, Ratia comes with over 20 years of leadership experience in domains such as financial services and e-commerce in India not just India alone, but also Asia and the United States. His track record boasts of building businesses, turnarounds and creating value and unique experiences for customers. He is also known for his collaborative leadership style and a penchant for new technologies in order to create differentiation.

3.

Mercer appoints Preeti Chandrashekhar as the business leader for benefits

With over 20 years of experience, she has earlier worked for Infosys and Willis Towers Watson.

Mercer, the global consulting leader recently announced the appointment of Preeti Chandrashekhar as the India business leader for benefits. Chandrashekhar joins Mercer from Willis Towers Watson where she was working as consulting leader for employee benefits for south India and Sri Lanka.

She has over two decades of industry experience along with expertise in global benefits harmonisation and management, trust governance and compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and actuarial services. Starting off with LIC India, Chandrashekhar worked with Infosys before joining Willis Towers Watson.

Anish Sarkar, country leader, Mercer India says, “Benefits is an important domain for Mercer across retirement & health lines of business. We now hope to expand our footprint in the market by bringing more of Mercer’s innovative solutions to our clients.”

HR learning: 21 Nov, 2016

1.

The Golden Lotus under India’s software deities

Our software powerhouses amputate the engineering capabilities of the majority of their recruits to make them fit for non-technical programming tasks. What does this do their commitment and contribution?

Among the most heart-rending things  learned in school was the Chinese practice of foot-binding for women of the upper classes. It resulted in severely stunted feet, euphemistically called 'Golden Lotuses' which could never be used normally. One could vividly imagine the feet of those young girls being subjected to such severe constriction that they could scarcely walk, leave aside run or aspire to athletic prowess.  

And one of the most distressing things witnessed in a career was the Indian practice of herding tens of thousands of highly qualified graduate and post-graduate engineers into software coding roles where most of their dearly acquired education was wasted.One became privy to some of their tales of frustration about the routine to which they were bound in place of their bright-eyed dreams of designing snazzy sports cars or space rockets. 

2.

21st Century Learning at Flipkart

It is important to continually challenge, innovate and understand the purpose and medium of learning.

Flipkart had a clear identification of the idea, that being a new-age millennial organisation, it had to grow and learn differently. As admitted by Stefaan, the biggest challenge here was to un-learn the traditional and conventional knowledge on learning, which although everybody admits is essential, but few have a practical approach to undertake. Hence, a cultural environment of learning had to be consciously built from the ground with the aim of creating a system that reinvented knowledge from the traditional and conventional methods. This led to coining of ‘I Learn. We Grow.’

Probably a big reason as to why the supermarket model gained traction (right from its inception in the Industrial Age to present times) is a term that every Learner knows all too well: ROI. However, as this event-based learning intervention system makes way for an understanding-based system, it will be measured and studied using new parameters and formula. With the belief that almost 90% of what people learn happens outside the classroom, and the modern workplace learning goes way beyond traditional learning and e-learning, ‘Flipskool’ was envisioned not as a training or skilling centre, but a knowledge and a performance centre. The matrix of the learning requirement of the talent might be squarely divided into ‘demand’ and ‘supply’, but customising it according to the organisation is where one needs to careful. Even at Flipkart, knowledge about retain, supply chain, ecommerce, happiness quotient needs to reach to every part of the organisation – right from strategic, marketing, IT and multimedia. A few low-cost elements of this arrangement which have reaped encouraging results include HBR access to directors, personal learning wallet to pursue a learning based on interest, passion-based communities to facilitate understanding and engagement, Flipster to Flipster (a Flipster is a Flipkart employee) sessions to give everybody a platform to share and interact, and focussing on the impact that all these activities have created. 

Leaders and learners need to own their learning, and the effectiveness of the same will follow – in quantifiable statistics and charts, which can further make a case for increasing the scope of the learning intervention. Flipskool presently focuses on employees, but in the long run, it can be a centre for knowledge and excellence for just about anybody – as is the goal.

3.

Change in learning curve in the age of disruption

Are all functions in your organization getting disrupted? Read on to know how this impacts the learning curve of your employee

Disruption has caused redundancy of skills, creating the need to constantly evolve and learn new skills. We need to upskill and reskill ourselves continuously. Today, the L&D teams have very good tools at their disposal. Their toolkit has drastically expanded in scope, availability and accessibility in order to pace with this constant change.

Most of us when we were in our school and college, we assumed that learning that we got then, would take us through bulk of our career. That is changed massively now because of disruption. Old paradigm was that one should know -how to run operations. So, people who would do well in the industry were those- who could manage people and lead large teams. Also, those who could understand technology well. This scenario has completely changed today as people should now know- how to partner with machines. They have to learn how to use robotics and learn use of natural language processing. These things are becoming more and more relevant. It is no more intuitive now. One needs to figure out ways to really substantially change their skillsets or else they will become irrelevant. This shift is now perhaps going to happen every 10-15 years or some say it might happen every 5-6 years.  That’s a huge disrupter, keeping in view, how L&D is going to provide that value added curve through. 

Another question arising of this context is - What percentage of knowledge for your job, you currently possess? Research shows that in 1960’s it used to be 90%. Most people felt that they have most of the information they require to do their work. Today, people believe that they have less than 50% information with them. This again is massive impact in terms of how companies and individuals work. 

In the present scenario, learning is discretionary and easily accessible outside office systems. Our learning ecosystem extends beyond organizational trainings to non-traditional assets. Our new age source model includes open source content , knowledge management , collaboration tools and peer networks , formal classroom training , expert forums and search engine etc. 

How L&D teams are changing today?

First, CLOs need to learn knowledge management and collaboration. They need to come together to deliver solutions.

Second, L&D leaders need 21st century skills i.e. collaboration, innovation, creativity, design thinking and ability to curate. I think curation is most important. All information is out there. The challenge is to access more information from different learning platforms and curate a  playlist of the all the knowledge gathered. Design thinking is another important factor which makes user experience better. 

Third, Coaching becomes increasingly important in disruptive situations. As world is changing super- fast, coaching is essential to thrive and progress in this transformational phase. 

Fourth, Partnership with Chief Information Officer is needed to make strides in user experience. 

Fifth and last is linking learning to performance. These two should be significantly interlinked.