How are organizations today prioritizing skilling for developing talent

The fear of impending recession has increased the pressure on entrepreneurs to boost business productivity to survive and cushion themselves from the uncertainties that lie ahead. However, the widening skill gap in the existing workforce due to market evolution and technical advancement is posing a tremendous challenge for businesses to thrive and safeguard themselves from the upcoming recession. 

87% of McKinsey Global Survey respondents agree that they are already experiencing skill gaps now or are expecting them within a few years.  

Skill development is the only way to create a future-ready workforce that’s prepared for imminent disruption. Employee upskilling has become the sustainability strategy for businesses worldwide, and the best way to fix the skill crises is to be ready for the uncertain future.  

Focus shifted from new hires to upskilling existing employees  

The business dynamics changed drastically post-pandemic. With the dramatic surge in digitalization and a paradigm shift in an organization’s operational model, businesses witnessed a massive expansion of skill gaps. 

Moreover, post-pandemic, the hiring got aggressive with the shortage of talent. The business world witnessed a fierce war for talent. 

Businesses could no longer just rely on hiring skilled professionals as their relevant skills were becoming obsolete within a short span of time. Gradually most companies realized the cost of hiring and training new professionals is too exorbitant. Hence they chose the alternate pathway of building talent by empowering existing employees through skill development. Companies have begun capitalizing on in-house talents to meet current and future requirements through this build versus buy strategy.

Organizations are currently strengthening their skilling strategies to catapult growth and shape talents. Let’s look at an example of a multinational IT services and consulting company, Mphasis, who leveraged skilling to enhance performance and change behaviour to address current business realities and future possibilities for business.  

How Mphasis, upskilled and shaped talent in their organization 

Satish Rajarathnam, the SVP, HR of Mphasis, shares in an interesting conversation with the Disprz CEO, Subramanian Viswanathan, how they’ve made “Right-skilling” a priority in their organization for developing talent for success. He highlights the three aspects they’ve focused on to shape talent in their organization:

1. Hire employees with core skills and shape them by building adjacent skills to help them evolve from where they are today.
2. Hire campus freshers and put them up to speed with Bootcamp and various other skill development and nurturing sessions. 
3. Understand the demand of the customer and upskill employees as per the demand.

Check out the full conversation where the SVP HR of Mphasis deep dives into the steps they’ve taken to prioritize learning in their organization: