The Hindu Business Line : Need one? Need all?

Tech players all along said, ‘give us programming skills, we’ll teach recruits the soft skills’ Now they seem to be looking for more, to crack the talent jigsaw game.

“It is definitely easier and less expensive to train for tech skills.”

Bijoy Ghosh

Making sense of the talent picture.

K Bharat Kumar

Here’s a typical scenario:

Candidate Number 1: Fresh out of college, suave, speaks fluent English, works well in a team, is confident when facing customers, has zero knowledge of computers.

Candidate Number 2: Fresh out of college, sound logic, a whiz with Java, uncomfortable with new clients, cannot speak English to save his life.

If you were a top IT services provider in India with clients across the world, which candidate would you choose?

Earlier, most companies seemed to prefer candidates with programming skills, whether or not they had communication skills and the ability to work in a team. The assumption was that candidates could easily absorb softer skills. Now, not all companies agree on that point.

Throwing net wider

iGate Global Solutions, for instance, feels it is easier to absorb graduates who have not come through the professional stream, such as engineering. While the company recruits from engineering colleges and works with them to take control of the curriculum and instruction in the last semester, it seems to be throwing the net wider.

Dr Srinivas Kandula, global head of HR at iGate, says that sometimes, “engineering graduates may not have learnt much, from colleges, in line with our requirement. So, we are now looking at non-professional graduates, especially from metros and big tier-II cities.” While these graduates might not have IT skills, they are equipped with good communication skills, he says. “Our plan is to train them on programming and coding.” He is confident that they will meet recruitment requirements in between three and six months. “I believe this is an easier option than imparting soft skills.”

Soft skills – an ongoing process

Satyam Computer’s Learning Centre Head, Rajul Asthana, agrees with Dr Kandula. He says, “It is definitely easier and less expensive to train for tech skills.”

Likewise, Mindtree’s CEO, Krishnakumar Natarajan, says, “We believe that hard skills, such as technology and competency, can be taught.”

He also believes that soft skills are not something that can be initially ‘taught’ and then let to drift. “We encourage our operating managers to actively mentor individuals on building their soft skills as well as make it key criteria for operating managers to be employee-centric and development-oriented. Building soft skills is an ongoing process where the organisation needs to invest and cannot measure success on a short-term basis.”

Some companies agree that those equipped with tech skills need not automatically possess soft skills but they decide to invest in equipping folks with soft skills.

Says Hexaware Technologies’ Deependra L. Chumble, Chief People Officer, whose major intake of freshers is from engineering colleges, “Soft skills training is required in a service industry like ours and this is one factor which students hired from colleges lack. Hexaware spends substantial resources for such training programmes which are conducted for freshers as well as for laterals.” For laterals, the company gives higher weightage to “technical” capabilities and believes that it is easier to upgrade soft skills at that stage.”

Manager takes call

Large companies too agree that it is easier to impart technical skills than those soft qualities, but they tend to absorb more people, given their ability to train and the resources they command. Says Ravishankar B, Global Head, Talent Management Group at HCL Technologies, “Teaching basic technical training is relatively easy compared to imparting soft skills. Soft skills training cannot be imparted in three weeks nor in three months). We only attempt to raise awareness to various soft skills needed to succeed in industry and continuously polish that through training, coaching and mentoring.”

He says that results are normally visible over a period of 12 months. Ravishankar also says that the company lets the manager (to whom the recruit would report) decide. “The manager is going to live with the recruit. He should evaluate the recruit and feel comfortable. All else is secondary.”

Gap analysis

Infosys says that it has a certain definition of ‘soft skills’. As soon as an employee enters its portals, it does a gap analysis (i.e, the gap between what the company requires and what the employee brings to the table). If there is a gap, the employee is given 11 days’ training. In the analysis following training, if the gap is still significant, then the employee is given consistent training on these lines for one whole year.

Says T.V. Mohandas Pai, head of HR for Infosys, “Of all our recruits, about 20-25 per cent have the full range of soft skills. Of the remaining, 20 per cent have gaps that can be remedied in a week. The rest require more time.”

Have aptitude, hop on

Says Bhaskar Das, Vice-President, Human Resources, Cognizant Technology Solutions, “Smaller companies may have requirements that can be met by looking only at “industry ready” candidates because the numbers are much smaller. When you are looking at a much larger scale of operations, one has to consider all options to get employable candidates.”

In other words, you take in all kinds as long as they have an aptitude for learning.

bharatk@thehindu.co.in

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