Employee Skilling
Birlasoft’s dynamic playbook for future-ready talent
Birlasoft’s skill-first, AI-driven talent playbook redefines careers, pay, and growth with a focus on internal mobility, digital mindset, and DEI.
In a world where generative AI, automation, and digital-first business models are rapidly reshaping the workplace, talent management is no longer about static career ladders or annual training programs. For Birlasoft, a global IT services provider, staying relevant means reimagining how skills, careers, and people intersect in an environment of continuous disruption.
“At Birlasoft, skills are the currency we trade in,” says Deepak Dobriyal, SVP – Global Talent Management. “We are not just selling services; we are selling capabilities. And that means our talent strategy must be agile, skill-first, and deeply connected to both our people’s aspirations and market realities.”
A skill-first approach to talent
Dobriyal outlines four cornerstones of Birlasoft’s talent management philosophy:
• Skills and competencies at the center: The company has adopted a skill-first approach, treating competencies as the foundation of its business model.
• Dynamic career paths: Employees are supported with evolving career journeys that match personal aspirations with business opportunities.
• Internal mobility: Through a talent marketplace, employees can explore internal roles, gigs, and stretch projects that accelerate learning.
• Skills-linked compensation: Birlasoft has redesigned its pay structures to reward in-demand skills and proficiency levels—eliminating the need for “hot-skill allowances” by aligning compensation directly with market value.
This granular approach ensures transparency and fairness, while motivating employees to continuously invest in new skills.
Beyond Skilling: Building a digital mindset
While technical upskilling remains a priority, Dobriyal emphasizes that mindset is the real differentiator. “We can train people on the latest tools, but unless they also develop a digital mindset—an openness to change, adaptability, and problem-solving—the skills don’t translate into impact.”
To support this, Birlasoft integrates mindset training into its learning journeys, and builds manager-as-coach models to ensure that line managers act as career guides, not just project overseers. Communities of practice and internal champions further nurture peer-to-peer learning.
Tackling the integration challenge
Birlasoft’s ambition has been to create a fully integrated talent ecosystem—linking its learning management system, career pathing platform, talent marketplace, and compensation systems into one view. Dobriyal admits this has been a complex journey:
“We’re about 80% through.
Once fully integrated, these systems will allow us to track learning journeys, career progressions, and skills supply-demand gaps seamlessly. The next step is applying AI on top of this data for predictive talent insights.”
Preparing for the GenAI era
For Dobriyal, the rise of generative and agentic AI signals not a job crisis but a skilling crisis. Birlasoft has already mapped 430 skill combinations across roles, identifying 100 that cover 80% of current projects, while the rest represent either declining or emerging skills. These are reviewed every six months by a skills council to ensure relevance.
“We see AI as a productivity multiplier,” he explains. “The challenge is ensuring our people are ready to work with these tools. Business models will become non-linear, less dependent on headcount and more on how effectively we can leverage technology.”
To get ahead, Birlasoft partners with technology providers, offers Coursera-certified programs, and runs its own internal platform, Cogito, to train employees on next-gen technologies.
Navigating growth
One of the company’s flagship initiatives is Career Campus, a tool tightly integrated with learning systems. It allows employees to:
• Chart personalised career paths.
• See the skills and competencies required for aspirational roles.
• Launch tailored learning journeys to bridge gaps.
Every role at Birlasoft is mapped to three dimensions—behavioral competencies, functional competencies, and technical skill clusters. Employees can track progress across all three, with support from managers and L&D interventions.
Diversity, equity & inclusion at the core
Birlasoft views DEI as a strategic mandate, not just a metric. Programs extend beyond gender to include people with disabilities, veterans, and ethnic diversity. A critical focus has been retaining mid-level women leaders, often at risk of dropping out during family-building years.
“We assign senior mentors—men and women—to support them through this phase,” says Dobriyal. “It’s not just mentoring; we’re also providing leadership exposure, capability-building programs, and infrastructure support to ensure they thrive.”
Leaders undergo sensitisation programs to handle diverse teams effectively, reinforcing an inclusive workplace culture.
Lessons in transformation
Reflecting on Birlasoft’s journey, Dobriyal highlights two enduring lessons:
- Stay adaptive: “No transformation plan survives unchanged. You must be willing to learn and unlearn constantly.”
- Keep people at the center: “The best-designed programs will fail if employees don’t see the value or adapt to them. People buy-in is the true measure of success.”
As organisations everywhere grapple with rapid technological change, Birlasoft’s talent playbook shows that building future-ready talent is not about one-time skilling, but creating an ecosystem where skills, careers, and people evolve together.
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