Now, ‘Zero Bench’ comes to the rescue of techies

Staffing and HR services firms have devised novel ways to assist IT services organisations create a ‘Zero Bench,’ coming to the rescue of hapless techies like Abhishek Rao and Sandhya Mohan who joined IT services companies with stars in their eyes, only to find themselves on the bench after 18 months.

Bench refers to employees who are between projects and are not billed to customers, remaining on standby till they are deployed to the next project by their employers.

At present, 10-12 per cent of the 1.3 million engineers employed in the IT services sector are on the bench, say industry observers.

Recognising this as an big opportunity to tap, Randstad India created a separate brand — Randstad Technologies — to help IT services firms, GICs (Global In-house Centres) and Product companies move towards creating a ‘Zero Bench’ by enabling ‘Just in Time’ hiring.

HR services firm CIEL HR recently launched iBridge, a cross company resource marketplace that enables IT services firms to utilise their Bench resources in short-term projects ranging from 3-6 months in other firms.

And ScaleneWorks People Solutions has a consulting and implementation offering for IT services firms to design and implement their ‘Zero Bench’ strategy.

Randstad Technologies operates like a virtual bench focused on delivering the right talent when it is required. “This provides the Indian IT market with a unique value proposition of on-demand and ready-to-deploy talent across mainstream and niche IT skillsets in fast turnaround times, from a few hours to a couple of weeks,” Moorthy K. Uppaluri, Managing Director and CEO, Randstad India, told BusinessLine .

Randstad Technologies has positioning itself as a hiring partner to manage customers’ talent requirements better, helping customers improve employee utilisation. The offering has garnered a lot of traction for its on-demand technology talent that comprises a curated, validated database of over 5 lakh candidate profiles, with 40 clients in the last few months, including large Indian and multinational IT/BPO firms, SMEs and start-ups.

“We provide IT roles, on demand, with a primary focus on the ERP, Infrastructure, Application Development & Management and SMAC technologies skillsets,” added Moorthy.

iBridge puts talent seeking companies that publish their requirements on the platform in touch with talent providing companies, which publish profiles of their bench resources.

In addition, talent seeking IT services firms can also choose profiles of freelancers who are looking for short-term assignments. In all, iBridge offers a list of 500 candidate profiles.

“Testing, Java and Web Development are the top three most demanded skills on iBridge. In experience levels, 2-8 years and 15 years plus are most in demand. We have signed up 20 customers who are small IT product companies, non-IT companies seeking IT talent and body-shopping firms” said Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO of CIEL HR Services.

The company is in talks with tier-I IT services firms, which are excited about the opportunity for revenue generation, reduction in bench maintenance cost, attrition control and upskilling employees by introducing them to diverse platforms and technologies, outside of their workplace, said Mishra.

ScaleneWorks has assisted four large IT services companies and several mid-size ones with talent development strategies, competency assessment frameworks and demand forecasting of skills required in the next 90-180 days.

“We also source and on-board talent for these companies,” said Sanjay Shelvankar, Chief Executive Officer, ScaleneWorks People Solutions.

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