How job-ready are you?

Updated on: Monday, October 10, 2011

A lot has been said about the lack of skilled workforce in India. Compared to countries such as Germany and Japan where 75 per cent of the total workforce is skilled, and the 85 per cent skilled workforce in South-East Asia, a meagre five per cent of India's total workforce can be called skilled.

In this scenario, hiring suitable candidates who fit the job profile is not the sole agenda of organisations any more. The industry is facing challenges at multiple levels such as sourcing the right talent, imparting awareness on career paths from entry level, reining in attrition as well as trimming training costs.

The ‘IndiaSkills – People Matters' report gives an analysis of cause and effect and a general pointer towards an easy solution to overcome the challenges in the long run.

Acquiring the right entry-level talent is seen as a source of competitive advantage to both services and manufacturing industries. An industry-ready, skilled entry-level workforce is the need of the hour. In the study conducted on the ‘Entry-Level Employability Gap', a number of facts were ascertained.

The respondents

The research looked at entry-level hiring at the graduate level, as well as for diploma and ITI, for the following industries – retail, hospitality, healthcare, banking-financial services-insurance, logistics, auto and construction.

A total of 169 respondents participated in the survey, out of which 57 per cent were Indian organisations and 43 per cent multi-national companies.

The number of available candidates as well as the quality of those available poses a major hurdle in hiring for entry-level positions. Though 85 per cent of the respondents agreed that entry-level talent was crucial, 52 per cent said there was inadequate number of candidates at this stage, while 75 per cent agreed that the quality of the candidates was not up to the mark.

Over 80 per cent of the companies surveyed agreed that they prefer candidates who have some vocational or skills training. A whopping 91 per cent said that training is a must for entry-level roles.

It also emerged that the current entry-level training systems as well as the internal training process are not effective.

A significant 30 per cent of the companies were actually not sure of the effectiveness of their own training processes.

It was also revealed that attrition levels are as high as 25 per cent for 84 per cent of the companies surveyed.

This is driven by two major factors: employees with inadequate skills find it difficult to cope with job demands; and lack of awareness of growth opportunities in the organisation.

Education

Naturally, education plays a key role in producing skilled workforce. However, according to 83 per cent of respondents, the present education system does not deliver the expected level of quality candidates demanded by industry.

Industry experts believe that the problems faced by the current system are outdated curriculum, lack of infrastructure to provide the right exposure and practical knowledge, quality of instructors, and lack of depth in skills learnt – both functional as well as soft skills (see graph).

Vocational training

The lack of vocational training, according to the respondents, causes some major dents. For, such training provides candidates with job readiness, reduces training cost and makes entry-level hires productive faster. Communication skills, customer orientation and ability to work in teams are the perks that come with the right kind of industry exposure, they feel.

The increasing skill gap faced by the organisations require them to use a combination of in-house and outsourced training models for training entry-level hires. The time invested in training also differs.

A total of 36 per cent said they spend three to seven days in classroom training, while 29 per cent said they spend seven to 15 days for training per annum. 25 per cent of them said training interventions happen monthly. Of course the productivity of the training in the given time varies considerably, with 46 per cent of the companies saying at least six months were required for the results to show.

How job-ready are you?

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