Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Upgrading skills helps everyone


Upgrading skills helps everyone

The tech revolution has been a boon, indeed, with record breaking economy and stock market. But this technology advancement has led to proliferation of automation which has also made repetitive jobs redundant, especially those of the executive-level, clerical posts and having large manual content. An obvious consequence of these routine layoffs has an impact on employee engagement, and also on the organisation’s brand, if the redundancies are not managed well. We need to first understand the root cause for most redundancies today. The reason is cheap availability of computing power and cloud storage are automating routine jobs. Digital processes are being integrated in the business processes and further stamping out human tasks.

Business models of organisations are undergoing a substantial shift. It’s taking over mundane, repetitive tasks. Consumer behaviours are also changing. And so is the customer expectation. Organisations also are now looking at ways to be more efficient and productive by using technology. Due to this there is a huge churn in the skill-sets that are needed.

The ordinary ‘middle-class’ repetitive production jobs, book-keeping jobs, data entry jobs are no more ‘relevant’. However, jobs belonging to the higher and lower ends have, in fact proliferated. The higher end jobs which require more ‘human’ skills such as networking, creativity, problem-solving, etc. have increased. And so have the low-end ‘hands-on’ jobs such as those of the restaurant service workers, house support aids, baby-sitters have also become more high-priced thanks to the fact that these can never be automated!

layoffs

Layoffs are leading to people becoming redundant since their skillsets are no longer needed by organisations. And this impact is across sectors. Hence, if a person feels, they will be fungible in the talent market with the same skillsets, then they are disconnected from ground reality. It is a fallacy of thought that they need to correct, now!

The only way to stay relevant as a prospective and a progressive employee, is by acquiring skills that are needed by organisations in their current business context. Skills, nowadays, have a very short shelf-life. Hence, employees need to get comfortable with the idea of constantly unlearning old skills and learning new ones.

Organisations have a crucial role to play here. Working closely with the clients to find out the role requirements, in-demand skills, and identifying candidates with the matching skills and channelizing the best fit for upskilling programs will surely boost the employee morale.

Forward looking organisations have already embraced the fact and they have initiated training and learning programs for their employees to keep them relevant, inside or outside of their organisation.
The author is country manager, Right Management India, part of ManpowerGroup India

Source | Hindustan Times | 25th January 2019

Regards

Mr. Pralhad Jadhav  
Master of Library & Information Science (NET Qualified) 
Research Scholar (IGNOU)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge Repository  
Khaitan & Co 
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
Mobile @ 9665911593

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