Tag: COVID19

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Employment Trends Human Resource Industry Evolution

New Skill training Post Covid

A new essential skill set requirement added to all job descriptions across the world –
Experience and management of work from home model.
“Do you know to handle your teams on WFH model. What have been the productivity levels and what has been the engagement hours? The emotional quotient required to manage people on the other side of the screen remotely will be a major HR skill .This will be the most essential question hereafter from any organization in an interview.

Whoever will develop this skill the best way will only be eligible for a job of leading and managing the team, else only fit for an Individual contributor. Learn the skill sooner than other to avoid getting redundant in the system. Else system will take the leap of introducing and adapting to automation preponing the plan of redundancy of people in the system.

A big wave of retrenchment and job loss among desk and process jobs to begin post- pandemic since all the processes will have got automated and human intervention and engagement will drastically reduce. Industry will have prepared for the next pandemic which will occur after 100 years assuming it will be similar to COVID. But in reality, Industry will have insulated itself from human dependency by the means of automation. The threat posed by robotics, AI and Machine learning has been executed by COVID beforehand.

It wouldnt be surprising if people will be managed by robots which was mentioned as an irony and laughed out earlier.

Industry digitization would have remained a temporary arrangement if Covid would have ended up in the first wave. But since covid has prolonged to second, third wave followed by black fungus or better mutated covid virus, the digitization will be further extended, improvised, sustained and habituated to.

Industry needs formalising the skill of WFH as a major training need and build training programs like how people management, motivation etc.., were identified as a skill earlier.

Categories
Employment Trends Entrepreneurship Industry Evolution Sectors

Impact of COVID on Industries and Job Market. Equip yourself to survive, sustain, and progress.

Job Market and Employment trends have undergone multiple transformations with time due to Recession, Globalization, Automation, and Digitalization. Currently, Industry is going through a tough phase due to pandemic, which has appeared nearly after 100 years.
The whole of the Industry is making assumptions and anticipations based on ever data possible. But unfortunately, most of them are not in alignment with the facts to date.

The changing scenario of the COVID census in different states, mortality rate, key people in politics, Govt or Essential services – tested positive, their duration of recovery, disturbance in the functionality of essential services … all have added to more confusion.

There were predictions made that, the second quarter of 2020-21 will see a considerable recovery. Whereas the job loss has increased, and pay cuts have prolonged till next quarter. Few of the Companies have announced pay cuts till March 2021. Appraisals, Bonus, and Variable Pay, have deferred until infinity.

Sectors most affected like Hospitality, Airlines, Automotive, Aerospace, Retail are struggling for survival. The Recovery Rate of Industries impacted due to COVID is very slow. The cascading effect is creating an enormous blow to the other Industries in the supply chain. Employees with higher Salaries, Senior people with monitoring roles, Support departments, Jobs that can be replaced by digitalization, Business Development roles are on the Target for retrenchments. Campus recruitments stopped for a year.

The positive side of the situation is, Junior level, capable and efficient people are elevated with higher responsibilities and opportunities to perform and acquire more senior roles once the market stabilizes. Most of the jobs are using virtual platforms to interact, reducing cost and time for both organizations and employees. The Industry will further explore and innovate newer means to perform and sustain.

Work from home will, in the future, give opportunities to more people in 2- tier, 3- tier cities, villages to work for MNC’s from their homes. Geographies won’t limit people to smaller or lesser opportunities. Educated Men and Women in small towns or villages will not have restrictions in career growth or opportunities. Lifestyle and exposure will improve in small cities.

Sectors like Pharma, Retail like Grocers, Vegetable vendors, Automation, Digitalization, few Mfgg units, Telecom, Networking, Computer Hardware, Infrastructure have seen the demand. Today’s job market belongs to only those people who can commit and deliver results in the least turn around time with utmost quality, integrity, and accountability. The changing demands and the situation of the Industry will force Companies to expect more from the employees. And Darwin’s theory of ‘Survival of fittest’ and ‘Natural Selection’ will force employees to thrive on competition. New Normal will come with many demands from the employers, better gauging criteria for performances and deliverables

Change is inevitable. One who adapts sooner will succeed, be it an Organization or an Individual. Equip yourself to survive, sustain, and progress.

Categories
Current Affairs - Corporate Employment Trends Industry Evolution Outsourcing Model Sectors

How will Resource Outsourcing/Staffing help the Industry Post –COVID?

How will Resource Outsourcing/Staffing help the Industry Post –COVID?

India has generally seen a trend of engaging blue-collared, support staff resources on third-party/ off-roll/outsourcing/ staffing engagement. Post-2008 recession, the pattern of engaging white collared, skilled resources widespread by the IT Industry but still was limited to IT Industry alone. Post-COVID, the trend of engaging white collared, technical employees into Contractual engagement excluding few Senior Management and strategical roles is envisaged as a necessity and is in demand now irrespective of any sector.

IT Industry shifted to this trend after the 2008 recession based on the following observations.

  • Bench cost was consuming revenues of the Organization affecting the financial health of the Company,
  • Having resources on bench based on the projection of growth didn’t turn out to be a wise decision.
  • Expansion plans delayed due to many factors
  • Competition,
  • Pricing,
  • Clients’ Approvals,
  • Licensing,
  • Global Economic trends,
  • Currency conversion,
  • Downtime between projects,
  • Mapping of the maximum capacity of each resource
  • On the other hand, holding back employees with no complete engagement led to the attrition of resourceful employees, leaving behind only the average people in the stream.

Why is the Non-IT Industry ( Construction, Infra, Energy, etc..,) following this trend 13 years later?

Non-IT Industry, on the other hand, has been most apprehensive about this model. And there have been justifying reasons for the same.

The reasons for non-acceptance were many concerns.

  • Accountability and Integrity of skilled resources on contractual engagement.
  • Gauging of work in manual ways and not digital ways which make it challenging to monitor the process
  • Empathy towards fellowmen for the insecurities in contractual jobs
  • Comparatively smaller players in staffing with an unclear or obscurely defined scope
  • Payroll agencies with only documentation capabilities or partial responsibilities.

Development and transformation was slower owing to

  • Multi-level external challenges
  • Delay in deliverables where the line of activities got disrupted without a possibility of back up or control
  • Support from all departments on time
  • Inventory availability
  • Govt approvals
  • Fund shortage due to delayed receivables from the end client,
  • Change in instructions from management/client since this Industry has been extremely dynamic in nature.

All the above reasons led to resistance to change or non-prediction of uncertainties or inability to collectively assess the cost and business benefit.

In the current scenario, ambiguities are intensified to the extent of the uncertainty raising questions like “IS THERE A TOMORROW? IF YES, WHO ALL WILL JOIN US AND BE A PART OF TOMORROW?”

Limited visibility to the future by even big giants of the Industry, failure of long term plans, long term plans being replaced by short term plans have forced every Company to lie low and sustain. This, in turn, has led to Pay cuts, Lay-offs, Furloughs, increased pressure for people to perform. In such a scenario, the Human nature of sympathy, empathy towards fellowmen, bothering about developing people for long term returns, consideration towards others’ jobs, feeling stressed due to workload have taken backstage. What has been more critical is working towards sustaining the Organization (a foundation which houses employees) through the chaos irrespective of all reasons – genuine, significant, logical or fake, insignificant, illogical.

This situation has led Industry to adapt to staffing/ outsourcing as a stop-gap to cater to the active projects, or newly acquired projects for the next three years. Approximately three years expecting all the cascading effects, chain reactions, transitions, transformations, adaptations to be completed in three years, and implementation of new normal to start functioning successfully.

Hopefully, this opportunity should transform the staffing industry with a place in the Industry as an organized sector- breaking barriers, inventing, innovating, and leading to great opportunities and aspiration to the youngsters to step in this Industry by choice and not by chance. Because decisions are made out of interests, and interests lead to innovation.

Categories
Current Affairs - Corporate

‘A problem needs a solution; a solution doesn’t need a solution.

‘A problem needs a solution; a solution doesn’t need a solution.

Corporates are only expected to find solutions for any problem occurring on the horizon. The issues may be repetitive or new every time. But, the solution changes with time, phase, people, and culture.

Unpredictable situations have always circled the Industry. A robust problem-solving approach is still the underlying strength of any organization. Every situation has made the Industry more dynamic, building better processes, updating to newer technologies, eliminating or improving people to adapt to the situation.

COVID 19 also is a scenario that will force the Industry to evolve at its best. This can be the best opportunity or the worst punishment for any Individual or Organization. Options are always available, and making a choice is unavoidable.

Clarity through any challenge is always a tough task. But when choices are offered, it is smart to grab and make an opportunity.

COVID 19 can be the best opportunity to introspect and retrospect self and the Organization. Most of the time, we have been extinguishing the fire. Here is the time to have 7- Dimensional view and build a road map to avoid a fire in the forthcoming times.

Problems have been an indispensable part of life, be it an organization or individual. Glorifying the problems worsen the situation and block our minds from thinking.

Fear of the future creates confusion in the minds. Any Organization or Individual was not born to face only good throughout. The expectations were to meet more negatives than the positives when the journey began. Ambiguity was most common as we were born with it. The difference has been that there was a variation in the volume of people in the same situation. The problems were distributed and were of different in nature with each group of people or Organizations.

Fortunately enough today, most of the Organizations or Individuals are facing the same challenges world-wide. So solutions also will be found sooner with so many minds working on it simultaneously.

Hold on to your Place, your Company, your Clients, and Business… this has come to pass by and make you better.