India can provide jobs to millions, if developing digital talent is taken up seriously
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Where is the digital talent companies need - An analysis
- The story: The digital transformation revolution started a decade ago, and picked tremendous pace during the pandemic. Suddenly, companies found that technical talent that could help streamline the transformation was in short supply. Companies are also realizing that talent need not be only engineering talent.
- Digital Talent: Rising attrition at companies and a shortage of talent is a global phenomenon. A report by McKinsey & Co highlights that almost 15 million US workers have quit their jobs since April 2021. The scenario for digital talent is even more dramatic. There is an estimated gap of 6 million between demand and supply of digital talent across eight countries including the US, China, India and parts of Europe.
- The shortage of digital talent in India is leading to high attrition rates and increased wages, but is this an existential crisis?
- Can this be an opportunity for firms to take some bold steps and become a digital talent hub for the world?
- The pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of enterprises, creating enormous opportunities for all organizations. Given the customer-centricity of the tech industry in India, the demand environment is extremely positive, and companies have announced aspirations to grow in double digits this fiscal year. The last time that the industry grew in double digits was in 2015-16. Its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period from then till 2020-21 was 7% and its headcount growth was 5%.
- This sudden acceleration in demand has led to a war for digital talent.
- What firms are doing: To deal with these talent wars, companies are adopting a multipronged approach—step up fresh hiring so that the supply pool increases, enhance re-skilling programmes through online learning, deploy adjacent-talent skills for on-the-job learning, and, above all, offer employees a holistic employment experience, one that spans career development, learning and wellness.
- The race to becoming and being seen as a talent hub is warming up across the world. For example, the UAE just announced plans to roll out green visas, expand eligibility for golden visas and attract top tech workers for the country to become the preferred investment hub for technology companies.
- Other countries like the UK, US and Australia are rethinking efforts to attract high-skill talent, including fast-tracking visas for at-risk sectors and promoting visas for highly accomplished applicants.
- Skilling is no longer a unidimensional exercise. Digital talent is not equal to education in the classic STEM disciplines: Science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Rather, digital talent stems from a digital-first mindset, which as per a survey by CapGemini, comprises hard digital skills such as data analytics and soft digital skills like storytelling, comfort with ambiguity, etc.
- Gone are the days when an engineer only sat in a room and wrote code. Today, the most important skill for a data scientist is storytelling.
- Solution: India can take these five steps -
- Implement the National Education Policy rapidly. It is important to have a long-term focus and we need to inculcate the right attitudes. Continuous learning, skill credits, world-class academic innovation, experiential learning, faculty training, all need to focus on excellence and outcomes.
- Build alternate talent pools. Engineers have been at the core of our talent strategy, but all tech skills don’t require a four-year degree. India can build digital capabilities in smaller towns, get more women to join the work-stream with hybrid work norms, revamp vocational education from industrial training institutes and polytechnics? It can leverage corporate-social-responsibility funding from industry for these programmes.
- Incentivize skilling. In the early days of the tech sector, tax incentives played a key role in building a global footprint of multinational corporations in India. We must now create schemes that incentivize skilling for corporates, not just for their own needs, but across the ecosystem.
- Explore innovative learning models. Use apprenticeship programmes at scale, not just for a certificate, but coupled with assessments. Invest in building world-class free content that can be leveraged by anyone and aligned with a credible system of certification.
- Democratize training. India must remove all hurdles for people to get skilled. Unnecessary entry qualifications and eligibility criteria should be dropped. Let’s have no barrier to entry, but a quality-controlled exit process.
- Summary: India must not only look at strategies aimed at increasing home-grown talent, but also work on attracting the best global talent to catalyse the next decade of growth and innovation. A digital future beckons.
- EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the idea of 'digital talent'. How is it different from standard engineering talent? (2) What are the ways India can create a vast mass of digitally talented people? Suggest a roadmap.
#digitaltransformation #digitaltalent #pandemic
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