A lot has already been said on the topic of talent and the way different countries look at it. I wish to add my views to this debate especially from an IT industry point of view. Let me start by stating three obvious trends that will drive talent demand.
First – Global IT industry has been a big employer of young talent across the globe because of the increasing influence of IT in business transformation. The global meltdown is being seen as an opportunity to transform by many CEOs across the world and they are looking at IT to lead this transformation.
Second – Technology innovation is driving IT complexity and strict compliance norms & concerns of business continuity is driving a need for repeatable processes and assured performance.
Third – IT has become “glocal”- it has to transcend geographic and demographic barriers to deliver this transformation.
Therefore, when we look at talent hiring, development and deployment on a global scale, we cannot afford to create artificial boundaries that global commerce does not support and at the same time we cannot make the mistake of assuming that talent from a handful of countries can meet the new demands being made on Global IT as being local with the customer is a critical factor that will drive our ability to truly partner with our customers.
That implies that high quality talent needs to be available across the globe that can drive this opportunity. Unfortunately, that is not true. While there are good examples of some countries putting emphasis on changing their education system to make it more business ready or what I call “increasing employability” – in most parts of the world, education and employability are not in step with each other, resulting in significant investment being made by individual companies in training. The employability challenges are universal. This includes countries like India and China where there isn’t a dearth of education institutions, but “employability” issues persist. In the US, President Obama had mentioned expanding access to higher education as one of the basic pillars of America rebuilding itself into the superpower status it enjoyed . http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education.
The four parties who need to play a role in addressing this critical challenge are – the Government, education institutions, the industry, and the students themselves, who need to understand the changing role of IT and the world of right-first-time processes along with innovation to drive effective transformation. None of the four can make this work in isolation – it has to be a well coordinated approach.
Thus the real debate is not about who is smarter or how can we create trade barriers to protect jobs-the real debate is how do we invest in every country and ensure we create rich employable talent that is globally available that will drive efficiency and innovation in our businesses.
We have a very large pool of very talented and educated youth. It is our responsibility to right invest in them.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
[...] Nothing is going to cause a firestorm of controversy more than saying that graduates out of America’s technology colleges are unemployable. The problem is that is only part of the story, and to get the full story, we have to visit Vineet Nayar’s blog over at HCL, and read between the lines of what was posted at Information Week. That implies that high quality talent needs to be available across the globe that can drive this opportunity. Unfortunately, that is not true. While there are good examples of some countries putting emphasis on changing their education system to make it more business ready or what I call “increasing employability” – in most parts of the world, education and employability are not in step with each other, resulting in significant investment being made by individual companies in training. The employability challenges are universal. This includes countries like India and China where there isn’t a dearth of education institutions, but “employability” issues persist. In the US, President Obama had mentioned expanding access to higher education as one of the basic pillars of America rebuilding itself into the superpower status it enjoyed . http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education. Source: HCL [...]
Dear Vineet,
Great to see Industry captains raise this very important issue. Would it be ok for us to share some of your writings with our audience (students, educators and industry professionals)?
You may appreciate some of the issues raised in our latest newsletter: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs028/1102381074657/archive/1102564420423.html
Warm regards
Venkat Matoory
Why is employability relevant only for the IT industry? this issue has been persistent for ages today. the concept of a ‘probation’ period exists in every industry. Many university programs provide for summer internships or projects to exactly try and address this issue. the problem however is cos the IT companies don’t want to take the risk of getting interns to work on real life projects. so it’s a chicken and egg situation that the industry has to be willing to solve but at whose cost (the customer?)
I agree with the need for improving the education system in every country to increase "employability". I am against setting up trade barriers that prevents you from hiring the talent on a global scale. However, it is difficult to portray the recent restrictions by some countries to reduce incoming IT workforce as setting up artificial boundaries. These are intended to restrict replacement of available local talent. Please note that I am not talking about short term transfer of senior management or temporary movement of technical specialists. This is about the core execution team. It is perfectly acceptable that the work naturally flows to the location where it can be done more efficiently. It is also acceptable to allow cheaper imports from another country. However, it may not be acceptable that you move people from one country to another to increase efficiencies. This will have a negative impact on the society both in short term and long term. The immediate impact is the unemployment coupled with abnormal pressure on the local wages. In the long term, local graduates will find less opportunities. It will be easier for a company to import an experienced employee than to train a local graduate no matter how employable that graduate may be. This can happen in all types of industries and not necessarily in IT alone. Free markets does not mean that a country keeps the interests of businesses ahead of its citizens.
You’re of the same hive-mind that suggests education is the key to intelligence and knowledge. I could drone on and on about the inadequacy of this thought process but it’s obvious your mind is closed and does not know towards which principles it has closed itself.
However, thank you for investing in the people of India. /s
You are quite dumb, you know that? As a CEO of a company, whose words carry weight, what frame of mind were you in that made you say "Americans are lazy." You have quite possibly made every American company’s management on some level pissed off. Which means, all us Indians in student visas who want to work for an American Corporation that actually value our skills and pay a fair wage are hurt. Thanks d-bag.
@CityU of Seattle : You are right. The problem is worldwide and not merely limited to a particular country. Countries across the globe are recognizing the need to align education systems with the changing needs of industry.
@Venkat Matoory : Thank you Venkat, I do believe this is a very important issue and must be raised as often as possible. Only then will we be able to do justice to the emerging young talent. We must collectively make sure that we build a strong bridge between education and employment opportunities.
@Sandhya : I appreciate your point and agree that the issue is relevant for all industries. As regards the IT industry not encouraging internships, I believe we take on a higher cost instead by training our recruits before placing them on a project so as to secure the work we do for our clients.
@Ramana Kumar : I believe we agree with each other as ensuring better employability does result is better employment opportunities for local graduates.
@Ishtar : On the contrary, I agree that intelligence and knowledge form the very foundation of education. The concern I have raised however is different: That we must focus our educational curriculum around the needs of industry to improve ‘employability’ of our talent pool. I believe that we have a large pool of very talented and educated youth. It is our responsibility to right invest in them.
@Rakesh : I would like to state unequivocally that I have at no point stated that Americans are lazy and actually I agree with you that it will be quite dumb for anyone to say that as it is far from the truth as is evident from the innovation that originates from America. However my misquoting me if the attempt is to divert our attention from the real topic-I do think people will see through that rather quickly. I have raised a concern about ‘employability’ which is not just limited to the US but is a valid concern of the entire IT industry cutting across geographies. Only if we focus our education around a curriculum that can maximize employability will we do justice to our talent pool.