Make In India – Leveraging Human Capital to Prosper in a VUCA World – Bridging the gap

Current Initiatives

While the 2015 Ernst & Young report on the subject highlighted that institutions such as ITIs are unable to meet the industry requirements of skilled manpower and outsourcing, leading to an increased reliance on the private and diploma institutions, the stated reasons for this preference being gap in technical curriculum as per the industry needs, lack of exposure of the teaching faculty to the changes in technology and up-gradation of infrastructure at ITI’s, the government has stepped in to amend the Apprenticeship Act as a start to addressing these pain points by:-

·        Dismantling of trade-wise and unit-wise prescribed numbers

·        Setting the minimum and maximum limits on number of apprentices to be engaged

·        Linking of the stipend to minimum wages for apprentices

·        Inclusion of all undergraduate, postgraduate and other approved vocational courses

·        Revision of curriculum of apprenticeship courses to align to industry requirements

·       Focus on bringing self-regulation and monitoring in the industry rather than enforcement by state through penal measures

·         Online portal for bringing in speed and transparency in approvals

Developing a competency-wage grid

A lack of commonly accepted standards which define the required levels of competencyfor an individual, and correlates the same to an ideal wage was another key challenge, that is being addressed by  development of the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF). NSQF lays down the competency framework and standards with respect to levels of competency for many trades in the industry, by

·   Creation of National Occupational Standards (NOS) for various job roles by sector skill councils (SSC).

·    Establishment of 10 competency levels thereby enabling vertical mobility in terms of skill levels.

·       Inclusion of competency levels that can be acquired by educationally disadvantaged/ school dropouts, 10th/12th pass-outs thereby, enabling them to acquire skills for livelihood.

However, to ensure success, the Government needs to put further impetus on the execution of the above initiatives and collaborate with industry to ensure sustainable success. Industry Initiatives of designing and introduction of specialized courses in partnership with academia, leveraging of technology & new methodologies to supplement OTJ, and setting up of training centers by the larger organizations to train employees as well as ecosystem partners will be critical in taking ‘Make in India’ to its logical successful completion.

Make In India – Leveraging Human Capital to Prosper in a VUCA World – The 3 Key Principles

Special Forces

Rather than a traditional hierarchical structure, SMEs will increasingly have to rely upon small, multidisciplinary, autonomous teams dedicated to achieving a particular goal in a finite time. Hiring these teams, or at least a large part of them, on an as-required temporary basis, while being counter-intuitive, will certainly be the place where value is created – optimizing the contribution of the workforce thanks to their multidisciplinary expertise, commitment and motivation.

Extreme agility

In the VUCA world, it is vital for firms to respond quickly to any change in their circumstances, realigning themselves without delay. This requires a large amount of decentralization: A strong decision-making command unit combined with the freedom of local entities to make their own decisions. The decentralized units will thus need ‘thinking’ rather than ‘doing’ heads.

Openness

In today's increasingly complex world, it is unsurprising that the most successful actors are those who build the strongest collaborative partnerships – with different firms, customers, public services, researchers, local partners, and others. Such collaboration will need to go beyond mere business commerce, and will need concepts such as ‘shared talent’ and outsourcing to be increasingly used in day-to-day operations.

Make In India – Leveraging Human Capital to Prosper in a VUCA World – Tech Is In

VUCA is an acronym used to describe or reflect on the volatility (The nature and dynamics of change, and the nature and speed of change forces and change catalysts), uncertainty ( The lack of predictability, the prospects for surprise, and the sense of awareness and understanding of issues and events), complexity(The multiplex of forces, the confounding of issues and the chaos and confusion that surround an organization) and ambiguity (The haziness of reality, the potential for misreads, and the mixed meanings of conditions; cause-and-effect confusion) of general conditions and situations. The common usage of the term VUCA began in the 1990s and derives from military vocabulary and has been subsequently used in emerging ideas in strategic leadership that apply in a wide range of organizations, including everything from for-profit manufacturers to education.

Embracing Technology

Those likely to survive, and prosper in today’s increasingly VUCA environment are technophiles, i.e., those constantly innovating and integrating external technological innovation into their business models. The world is becoming less linear and turning into a complex adaptive system. This necessitates a seamless integration of industry, especially SMEs with their limited organic R&D capability, with related academia. Through this the super-technophile younger generation needs to be oriented towards specific skill sets critical for the specific sector.

Cybernomics

This is simply the ability to leverage new technology, in particular Web 2.0, big data-mining capacities and digitization. Here again, the SMEs that are able to win a decisive advantage in this fifth domain by achieving maneuverability and keep their organization lean& high-value, with their modular structures ensuring agility, will prosper the most. 

Make In India – Leveraging Human Capital to Prosper in a VUCA World – A Beginning

An effective “Make in India” initiative for the Indian industry is expected to create a globally competitive industry serving both domestic and global markets. This implies an equivalent increase in demand for a world-class skilled workforce and outsourcing. “Make in India” will increasingly require organizations to further enable their HR functions for identifying the capabilities required for business continuity and future growth and also ensure attraction, retention and nurturing of talent.

The manufacturing sector is now seen as competing for talent with other sectors such as IT/ITES, Service, etc. The challenge of talent attraction, employ-ability and retention, for manufacturers is getting increasingly complex.

SMEs especially find it difficult to attract top notch talent at all levels. The talent acquisition process in these organizations does not enable hiring talent with right skills and behaviors. Further, these organizations find it difficult to retain any high performing talent. Some of the reasons contributing to this are:

•  The demand for qualified talent far outstrips what is available readily.

• Aspiration of high performers to move up the value chain and look at wider and challenging opportunities with larger organizations/ OEMs.

• Limited attractiveness of career with dealers and smaller vendors as the culture, career

growth opportunities and work environment may not be most conducive.

Building HR process robustness, especially with the respect to hiring, salary levels and career path creation to meet the above challenges therefore requires increased attention.

Skill development of the large talent pool is seen as the most critical lever in delivering under the “Make in India” initiative. However, the industry is faced with certain key challenges with respect to skill development:

·         Whether the available resource pool is industry ready, and whether they have the requisite skills set to deliver on manufacturing & R&D excellence in a VUCA environment?

·         Are there any new skills which have emerged critical for the industry?

·         Are the current government & industry initiatives sufficient?