The Hindu Business Line : ‘Indian companies lag behind in training’

As companies in the US enter a period of slow down and cut back on expenditure, their training departments are likely to be among the first to feel the impact of cost-cutting.

However, Expertus, a learning technology and business process outsourcing company, makes little of the slow-down and its impact. In fact, this US-based training company, views the current slow-down as an opportunity.

Mohana Radhakrishnan, Vice-President, Client Services, Expertus, believes that this is time that companies should use to focus on training their staff who would have more time to devote to training and up-skilling.

“This is the time to train staff and gear them for the next wave of technology,” she says when asked about how the slow down was impacting her organisation.

Expertus offers learning and training development for ‘corporate universities’ — the term used to describe the learning and training departments of companies based in the US.

Over the past three or four years, these departments have consolidated, resulting in the formation of corporate universities that handle the training requirements of anywhere between 30,000-100,000 employees. The corporate universities are headed by Chief Learning Officers.

Expertus offers companies training and learning management systems, process support and content creation services, including e-learning modules.

In India, its customers include Cholamandalam-DBS, Ford Business Service, Hyundai and Satyam Cinemas. Globally, it services companies such as NetApp, Cisco, ADP, EMC, Schlumberger and Hyperion.

India lagging behind

Talking about the development of training and learning services in India, she says the country is still a few years behind the US and European markets.

Training is still considered an HR support function in the majority of Indian companies, with the exception of the pharmaceutical and IT companies.

“Training is treated as an incentive or bonus reserved for well-performing employees; this mindset has to change,” she says.

On the other hand, in the US — where she is based — training has grown in importance and is treated as a skills management function. Employees are considered an asset and are trained by their organisations as part of their growth strategy.

“It’s no more human resources but human capital. So employees have to be imparted training for the benefit of the companies,” she says.

Though India has some catching up to do in this respect, on the brighter side, she says, India could make up the gap with the West given that Indians were by nature “education-oriented.”

Given the opportunity, employees would be proactive in receiving training to upgrade their skills. Besides, it was every organisation’s duty to train their employees and upgrade their skills and talent.

“Everybody aspires to grow during their lifecycle in a company. Organisations also should fulfil their commitment to upgrade employee skills and learning,” she says.

On the importance of ‘learning on the job’, she said this would fall in the ambit of informal learning. Expertus itself has implemented a mentoring service to assist employees with suggesting reading, etc.

Agreeing that it was the newer companies that were cued in to the need for training and skills improvement, she added that the older companies would also have to travel down the same road.

“Today, young employees are themselves keen to upgrade their skills as it empowers them to achieve higher goals. Companies cannot deny them the opportunity for growth and development,” she says.

Correction: In the article titled ‘Talent management, our biggest challenge’ carried in these columns on June 9, the name of the Director of HR at ING Vysya Life is Priya Gopalakrishnan, and not as published.