New India HINDUSTAN TIMEIS, MUMBAI, TUESDAY, MAY 20, 2008

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Grooming alent

Training firms explore different models to prepare graduates who lack relevant skills to work in private sector

Aruna V i i swanatha N e w Delrhi, May 19

EVERYONE AGREES t h a t only about a qua r t e r of India 's graduates a r e employable. But no one h a s qui te figured out w h a t to do wi th the rest .

"When they come, they a r e absolutely fresh," observes Rahul Shah , a once associate vice-president wi th Infosys Technologies Ltd's busi­ness process outsourc ing a r m .

When it comes to soft skills, they don ' t know how to wri te a n email, <or how to ta lk to clients. On the prac t ica l side, e v e n those wi th degrees i n account ing don ' t k n o w how to create finan­cial models. "They jus t know basic bookish concepts," Shah says.

Shah left Infosys to s ta r t a f irm called KPO Academy, one of the many new start-ups in t he burgeon­ing t ra in ing sector. The KPO Acade­my rel ies on "finishing schools" where second-tier g radua tes will pay up to Rs 40,000 for the prospect of future em­ployment in t he ou tsourc ing sector, alongside par tnersh ips wi th f i rms such as Infosys and JP­Morgan Chase and Co. to take h i s recrui ts .

In some ways, h i s mode l combines the vari­ous ways companies have dealt wi th the need to t ra in India 's unemployed youth. Many rely on so-called re ta i l t ra iners; such as Aptech Ltd for information technology and Frankf inn Avia­tion Services Pvt . L t d for flight a t t endan ts where s tudents pay to u p g r a d e the i r skills.

Other companies rum thei r own t ra in ing cen­tres, such as Infosys' 4,000-seat campus in Mysore. Others such ass Genpact Ltd have flirt­ed wi th free or n o m i n a l fee t r a in ing a t store­front locations for po t en t i a l candidates , whi le HCL Infosystems Ltd aind Kingfisher Air l ines Ltd have spun off t he i r t ra in ing un i t s into sep­ara te moneymaking v e n t u r e s that can also feed the i r own talent supply needs.

"There a re mil l ions of exper iments going

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on," says Manish Sabharwal , c h a i r m a n of the staffing firm TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd. Not all of them are working. "We've got about 24 ex­per iments with t r a in ing firms to r epa i r ou r in­terview rejects," says Sabharwal , "but it usual­ly doesn' t lead to a job."

Frus t ra t ion on the pa r t of recrui ters is mir­rored by those who hire. "I would expect that I could go to some company," says Puneet Singh, vice-president for h i r ing at Genpact, "and say, 'Today I need 20 people who can do accounts payable as of now'." "I th ink other companies need to come up," he says, explaining that he has to plan further in advance to staff even a process of only two-dozen people. "It 's a space that ' s open." The numbers confirm that India's h u m a n

resources sector is, paradoxically, both a crowded and a wide open one.

According to indus t ry est imates , the re a re 20,000 companies regis tered in the a reas of r ec ru i tmen t t ra in ing , but the Top 10 companies make up

less t h a n 15% of the market . In mos t m a t u r e sectors, the Top-10 players command 60-70% of the market .

"There is a huge gap between wha t academic ins t i tu t ions provide a n d what corporates a r e looking for," says Sr ini Krishnamurthy, who is manag ing director of h u m a n resources f irm Exper tus Inc. Seeing a marke t in the est imated th ree mil l ion college g radua tes India c h u r n s out every year, according to t r ade body Nation­al Associat ion of Software a n d Services Com­panies, or Nasscom — most of t hem unemploy­able — hundreds of companies a r e t ry ing to fill tha t gap, and make the process more scientific.

On one side, companies a re t ry ing to t ie up

with colleges, and boost t r a in ing on the skills the indus t ry needs. Expertus , for one, hosts job expos where each candidate is pre-screened and matched wi th a possible employer based on how the candidate performed on a n apt i tude test, and the employer 's benchmarks . Exper tus also teaches soft skil ls courses on campuses , which the colleges pay for. Companies such as HCL a n d Wipro Technologies woo colleges to m a k e su re they have something akin to a pri­vate ta lent supply.

The HCL Technologies Ltd ties u p wi th col­leges to provide on-campus t r a in ing on busi­ness a n d communica t ion skills. The company swallows the cost of the six-month t ra in ings in order to get " r ight of first refusal," says HCL senior vice-president and t ra in ing head Anand Pillai, mean ing the company will be the first to decide which s tudents it would like to hire . And for a company that h i res on the scale HCL does — tha t n u m b e r can h i t 5,000-10,000 in one month — Pillai doesn' t see the t ra in ing func­t ions going to vendors.

"In-house t r a in ing should be the no rm," h e says, "When you a t ta in a cri t ical mass , there 's no need to involve any others ." But for compa­nies that h i re on a smaller scale, t ra in ing firms are moving in. Last year, for example, Aptech s tar ted working with IT and retai l customers to manage the i r fresher "onboarding" t ra inings , the season when graduates join employers en masse. The company expects that model to grow because it can make t ra in ing more quantifiable.

"There is far h ighe r accountability, and they ' re far more open to being measured on performance." And dozens of b rand new com­panies , l ike KPO Academy and Aspire H u m a n

#* There is a huge gap between what academic institutions provide and what corporates • I are looking for... In case of t rain- to -hi re model the risk shifts to the supplier. If I'm an ™

H R company, and a client says, "You train & provide candidates, I'll hire,' but only hires 8 out of 20, who pays the balance? SRINI KRISHNAMURTHY, Managing director of Expertus Inc.

Capital Management Pvt. Ltd a re t ry ing to ful­fil r eques t s such as Genpact 's for workers t ra ined in specific skills. The KPO Academy, a t r a in ing company tha t is a product of Infosys and Accenture Ltd a lumni , is inaugura t ing its first class mid-June.

Aspire , founded by former head of WNS Knowledge Services Pvt Ltd Amit Bhat ia , is also t ry ing to develop the ta lent pool i n smal ler cities, but is asking employers to bea r the b r u n t of the cost. In exchange, the company is prom­is ing deployable candidates, th rough software tha t b reaks u p each necessary skill and meas­ures how successfully a candidate can be t ra ined on specific skills.

But whe the r or not a company can success­fully merge recru i tment and t r a in ing is still a n open quest ion. Aptech, NUT Ltd and o ther t r a in ing companies t r ied out a train-to-hire model at the reques t of BPOs several years ago, to not m u c h success. On the one hand , says Aptech's Vani, the fixed costs a re passed on to t ra in ing vendors while the income is extreme­ly variable. But on the other, s tudents can leave half-way through the t ra in ings to sign u p wi th ano ther employer. "Two stakeholders a re bear­ing the costs," he says, refer r ing to the s tudent and the trainer, "wi thout a n y guarantee" .

Others , too, a re sceptical the train-to-hire model can work. "The r i sk real ly shifts to the supplier," says Exper tus ' Kr ishnamurthy . "If I 'm a n HR company, and a client says, 'If you t r a in and provide candidates, I'll h ire , ' but only hi res eight out of 20, who pays the balance?" In­stead, Kr i shnamur thy expects to see vocation­al t r a in ing and specialised ins t i tu tes pick up the slack, and separa te merged r ec ru i tmen t outsourcing f i rms to take over for mom-and-pop shops. No one, though, has m u c h reason to worry. "For the t r a in ing and rec ru i tmen t in­dustry," h e says, "we ' re going to be in a h u g e boom for qui te some t ime."

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Publication Name : Hindustan Times - Mumbai

Publication Date : Tuesday 20 May 2008

Page# : 10

Size : 1003.14 sq.cm.