Article: Overcoming skills shortages by acquiring experienced freshers

HR Technology

Overcoming skills shortages by acquiring experienced freshers

The Indian education system is facing challenges like never before due to fast-paced changes in the professional world. So what can organisation do to solve the shortage of skilled professionals? Piyush Nangru Co-Founder & COO, Sunstone and Sunny Verma, Group Head - Learning & OD, JBM Group discuss in a fireside chat at People Matter TechHR India 2022.
Overcoming skills shortages by acquiring experienced freshers

Finding a fresher willing to put in the hard work is a challenge in today’s time. Finding an experienced fresher itself is close to impossible! It is an oxymoron called out by Sunny Verma Group Head - Learning & OD, JBM Group in the conversation itself. Yet for Piyush Nangru, Co-Founder & COO of Sunstone, the idea is enabled by Sunstone’s aim to care for all the deserving freshers and develop talent with the specialised set of skills catering to the needs of the organisation, that is hiring them. Alas, overcoming skill shortages through “experienced freshers” - an oxymoron in itself- seems a distinct possibility!

According to Piyush’s observation, only 10% of the students are taken care of by the top institutes, which he blames on the lack of standardisation and resources in the Indian education system. Delivering quality education to the entry-level talent is segmented en masse, it stresses more the importance of the role of technology for the next generation.

"Institutions are caught in a vicious cycle. As a country [India], we operate at a very poor fill rate. We have 6 lakh seats in MBA but only 3 lakh students. We have 17 lakh seats in engineering but only 8 lakh students are taking admissions every year. In terms of employability, because of low fill rates, they don't invest enough in the quality of education. You need someone in the class who can teach your business; asking about how is it relevant and how is it engaging." Piyush said.

It is tough for the education system to adapt to the breakaway changes in the industry, which is leading to skill shortages among talents. On tackling this very issue, Piyush Nangru shared, “Stakeholders can create a win-win situation for freshers by plugging job roles with specialisation, increasing the employability quotient.”

Job roles curated in a specialised fashion are a kind of adoption stakeholders can look into while managing their talents. Organisations can hire freshers and train them in technical skills necessary for the organisation’s growth. Though training freshers is nothing new, major industries and institutions are nowadays caught in a vicious cycle of churning talents who stack up the employee space but may not necessarily have the skills needed to solve. The approach needs ‘fresh eyes’ to adopt new processes. 

Piyush coloured the current generation of freshers as “the captive members of an education program of 2-3 years” and sees this as a potential goldmine of opportunity to train them, and mould them the way organisations want them for their business needs. Leaders can take note of the fact that technological upskilling is not about giving learners the task. It is also about holding their hands and leading them from the front.

Checkout the full video of the session below:

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Topics: HR Technology, Skilling, #TechHRIN, #Hiring, #Education

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