Technologies are changing rapidly, and it is important that employees remain skilled in the latest technologies. While an internal pool of talent can be reskilled, another area that companies can look at is lateral hiring with ‘adjacent’ skills — bring them on board and reskill them in the new skillset. This is the way to expand the addressable market of talent that is available but not fully used, said Salil Parekh, CEO, Infosys.

On how to scale talent to meet the growing demand for digital skills, Parekh said that the traditional way is entry-level recruitment; internal pool and lateral hiring. However, companies should aggressively look at reskilling employees. “We have an active approach to take 2,50,000 employees and ensure that they have the opportunity to reskill on newer technologies,” he said in his speech on Foundation for the Future Workforce at CII Connect 2020.

The digital economy is rapidly evolving and newer intangible skills along with technical skills are valued highly by enterprises. The onus is on the companies to respond and stay relevant to the changes depends on the response to emerging technologies; investing in to digital and recruiting and retaining talent, he said.

The confluence of work (like human and machine collaboration), workspaces (digital and collaborative workspaces) and workforce (managing multi-generation workforce), on a foundation of digital learning is critical to every enterprise.

There is also a need to diversify the talent strategy by moving away from the STEM-only approach to a ‘STEAM’ approach, by hiring and training graduates taken from the liberal arts, economics and humanities, he said.

Different market forces are reshaping the future of enterprises. Disruptions are impacting companies. This includes geopolitical challenges and diversity; new delivery models and new ways of working; new age competitors and cost imperatives; expansion of digital technologies and digital native customers.

Parekh suggested on creating an advanced and skilling ecosystem consisting of the government, industry bodies, educational institutions and corporates and looking at competency dimensions like technical, behaviourial skills, process and business skills. This is critical to create an ecosystem on possible outcomes and objects that the training environment will create. It will also create a strong and exciting foundation for the future that will be valuable for companies and individuals as they build skills and careers, he said.

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