The Employability Crisis is a Global Crisis

The Employability Crisis is a Global Crisis
1:05 PM Wednesday June 24, 2009
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High quality talent needs to be available across the globe. Unfortunately, this is not currently the case. While there are good examples of some countries putting emphasis on changing their education systems to be 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 individual companies having to pick up the slack with significant investments in training.
From my point of view as a CEO in the IT industry, there are three trends that will drive talent demand in the future — and should hence be driving talent development in the present:
1. The 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.
2. IT has become "glocal" — it has to transcend geographic and demographic barriers to deliver this transformation.
3. Technology innovation is driving IT complexity and strict compliance norms & concerns of business continuity is driving a need for repeatable processes and assured performance.
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. 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; being local is a critical factor that will drive our ability to truly partner with our customers where they are.
These employability challenges are universal. This includes countries like India and China where there isn't a dearth of education institutions, but "employability" issues persist. And it includes the US, where President Obama has argued that expanding access to higher education is essential for America to recover its superpower status.
The four parties who need to play a role in addressing this critical challenge are the Government, education institutions, industry, and the students themselves, who need to better understand the changing role of technology and innovation in driving transformation. None of the four can make this work in isolation — it will take 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 about how 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 large pool of talented and educated youth. It is our responsibility to invest in them — intelligently
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June 25, 2009 at 12:27 PM
I observe that one of the issues is that the decision makers (governments) horizon and the impact of education don't match in both the time and the geographic dimension:- governments face elections every 4 or 5 years and even if they don't, they need to show short term results to justify their existence (so it's not just governments - its the society), but investment in education takes far longer to show returns. Particularly as in many countries (i.g. Germany) pre-school and primary school are worst in terms of underfunding.- governments are concerned with their own country. If its cheaper to off-shore education and get good people in from abroad, they are tempted to do this (though there are other forces pushing against this trend)
Also, in many countries, particularly in Europe, the teaching profession looks down on content and skills that are primarily taught so that students can earn their living later on. Being too close to "business and big money" is frowned upon. They want to save the world from the corrupting influence of companies and managers by focussing on pure science and high culture. I've seen small-town high school headmasters in Germany rejecting the offer of alumni in S&P500 top management positions to come in and talk about the business world and explain the career opportunities for graduates - with a fast track for talented students from this school.
I also found teachers shying away from anything too close to the real world, because they've never been their in their school-UNI-school (or school-UNI-UNI) CV. With real world topics they can be challenge by students. Even modern languages are taught as they were 30 years ago and any student recently on an exchange program can challenge teachers. My personal theory is that this nurtures a love of teachers for Latin and old Greek as they don't change any more and is the reason why these two languages are taught far more often in some European countries than, say, Mandarin or Arabic.
So, at the end of the day, it is the whole culture of each country that stands in the way of better education leading to better employability. There are very basic values need to change to - put education higher up on the agenda and- make education more relevant to achieve better employability (while I'm not saying every hour taught needs to aim at professional skills. There are certainly many topics about our history and culture that are valuable. It's just that in Europe at least the balance is a bit on the wrong side.
— Sven Ringling
June 29, 2009 at 7:35 AM
Dear Mr Nayar,
I generally agree with your view of the changing economy. What raises my doubts is the question of expanding access to higher education you mentioned in this post.
We have been doing that in Poland for some time now and recently more and more people in Poland tend to argue that we have chosen the wrong path. They say it is quality, not quantity that should matter. Yet we put the largest emphasis on the latter.
I agree, that expanding access to higher education is an opportunity to those talents that otherwise would never be discovered. Yet on the other hand, it is pure biology, that the more students there are, the more of them are of average or under-average intelligence, commitment and learning abilities. What happens as a natural consequence, is lowering the level of education. Graduates are not anymore EDUCATED, they are barely SPECIALIZED.
Poland is a country of traditionally high educational standards. A university graduate has always been expected to have more than basic basic general knowledge plus extensive knowledge in their area of specialization. Now I observe biotechnology students, who cannot calculate fractions and journalism students, who cannot spell correctly and do not know in which century the Watergate scandal took place. And this is not the worst thing - the worst thing is that they think it is perfectly all right. They do not have to know fractions, because their computers will calculate them. They do not have to know how to spell in their own language, because they will have proofreaders. And Watergate - it happened so many years ago, that why would they care?
My own university teachers had wonderful, interesting personalities. They taught their students something not only about - let's say - the history of the US, but also about life and values in life. If the current tendency does not change, in a couple of years we are not going to have real teachers anymore - only specialists in narrow disciplines. And that does not lead to making the society more enlightened and broadminded, but quite the opposite.
I am an academic teacher myself. In my career I have had some brilliant students and some wonderfully ambitious and involved groups. Yet year after year there are fewer of them. More and more people lose any interest in the world beyond the narrow disciplines they choose to study. But is that really the right way to go? To change all educational institutions into vocational schools? Is it not depriving the societies of something more worthy than pure specialization?
I will be glad to get to know your opinion on this matter.
Kind regards.
— Patricia
July 1, 2009 at 3:10 AM
Dear Patricia,
I am not fully with you about the pure biological background of lower intelligence of younger genrations of students, not only in Poland. Have made similar observations in the past in Germany and nowadays also here in Switzerland.First some facts about my personal background:Rosen up in East-Germany prior the Fall of the Wall (that happened when I was 16) I was lucky to receive a pretty generic education including secondary school level opening the opportunity to graduate with an degree in civil engineering finally.
What I am experiencing since 1989 there is a downturn of social culture all over Europe leading to less interest within the society to be well and up-to-date educated.
If one considers i.e. Germany -until the late 80s of the last century one of the worlds most recognized country of science and research- there is an obvious meltdown of social funding not only within the education system but also in funding the average society! Therefore I'd like to state kind of a theory:As long as employers do not realize their responsibilities for proper payment of their unskilled employees so that those are able to live not in poverty and the state does not support that with the needed strength there will not be chance to improve a society's level of average education at all.Same applies to the people being unable to work (due to illness etc.) or being unable to find work to be properly paid for!
So I see not only the biology as a reason rather than also the society's mindset to the development of it's own future!
Kind regards from Berne, Mario
— Mario
July 17, 2009 at 8:04 AM
Some thoughts on employability:
a. As an industry, I would like to believe that IT services companies have done very little to improve education standards or ensure 'employable' resources. Even if there has been any initiatives - from what we hear in India - it has been undertaken with a short-term objective of creating job-ready IT services candidates. In an ideal situation, we would have witnessed 'simultaneous improvement of complementary goods.' In this case, as IT services industry progressed, there should have been an increase in 'employable' resources. The lack of 'employable' resources is a very clear indication that the industry didn't take substantial steps in building an ecosystem that would ensure 'continuity' (sustained growth).
b. The lack of 'employable' resources will in all likelihood cause a 'reverse salient' in India's competitive advantage in IT services. The concept of “reverse salient,” is borrowed from military jargon, where it refers to a section of an advancing force that falls behind the front and hence slows the progress of the attack. All developments evolve in a similar fashion with advancement hampered by reverse salient that occurs in the developmental process, some components of it or in the larger ecosystem.
— Rahul Anand
July 31, 2009 at 9:20 AM
I believe that the notion of so-called talent has to be tested. I mean to say one has a certain skill or competency is always context dependent - there needs to be additional courses in practical/social skills as well - The notion of an IT talent is too restrictive to be deemed good - sure they have skills for IT tasks - but they need more flexibility and extra skills to be really good
— Stephen Pain
September 2, 2009 at 5:14 PM
Dear Mr. Nayar,
I disagree.....
I have posted couple of comments against your blog in your www.hcltech.com website. Kindly check if you have time. Hope so it would be interesting.
Let's hit the topic...
Point No: 1 - You have mentioned about global meltdown and IT industry's chances of taking advantage over it. Agreed, but should that be a necessary rule that the organisation's own employees have to work for 18 hours continuously? or work for more than 68 hours a week? I don't think they are compensated for that. How good are the expectations when there is no benefits in a business culture?Should I take this chance to inform that particular organisation's own policy for employees - "EMPLOYEES FIRST"?
Point No: 3 - Technology innovations are considering strict compliance & norms.... Strict compliance also includes the number of working hours as per Ministry of labour's recent law, where India is the key player of ratification. Should employees work beyond health & safety standards? compromising on their personal life?
You have mentioned President Obama's argument about education. His country has another advantage - "SOCIAL SECURITY". If employability has an uncertain turn, employees are not affected deeply, as they have SSN's (Social Security Number), where the government funds their expenses. Can any Indian National working in India dream about it? The government is not ready to offer any sort of compensation, yet we see Lay-offs as a key tool for revenue generation. Profitability should not be the key motto of any organisation. Country like Germany would invest more time on Research and Development. This way it encourages even the least successful candidates to take up challenges, though money wont. henceforth resulting in efficient work delivery.
Regards, Sujay
— Sujay
September 11, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Technologists have created such a wonder such as "Open System Interconnect" (OSI). The uniqueness of OSI is that it transcends time, space, situation and status barriers making the system reach out "any one, any where, any how". This demonstrates, the universal connectivity reducing the universe into one global village. The systems are able to achieve this without losing their own identity. Today, IT (attaining Knowledge and Sharing Knowledge) is possible because of this spirit. If one has got this right, they will not blame the Technology or IT.
The problem lies in the "Leaders and decision makers" who are using this technology and living in the age of OSI. It is unfortunate that these leaders and decision makers who are still stuck with color, caste, creed, culture, and country continue to operate in the disconnected mode with a narrow mind and closed spirit. The "Intelligent Leaders' with their Ignorance and Insecurity" attach too much importance to status and power. They start talking global but remain ‘glocal’!
This ignorance and insecurity is the “real terrorist”. This terrorists is haunting mankind leaving him disturbed within and continuously disturbs and suspects the world outside. Without ones knowledge, one is running from pillar to post. The search for the terrorist outside is on to root it out. Human being is wasting considerable amount of time, money and his energy over these matters to eliminate the terrorist outside; by attaining the super power status one thinks one has solved the problem..
Arise and wake up leaders! innocent individuals, systems, organizations, society and countries are suffering because of this deadly terrorist.It is not enough if one appreciates Mahatma Gandhi. If one can understand and imbibe the spirit behind the Mahatma one can enjoy and live by the "true universal spirit". He enjoyed freedom fearlessly without fighting. He maintained harmony and peace within and outside and lived by the spirit of universal brotherhood. This was possible because he set aside the differences of color, caste, creed, country and never gave importance to status and power. It is due to this spirit of his, Mahatma Gandhi continues to live.
Earlier the leaders shed their wrong attitudes and worked in true spirit following either the spirit of technology or the spirit of the Mahatma. The present crisis of global -education, employability, business and trade will naturally get resolved if it is approached in this spirit. Without this transformation, any solution is only temporary and the crisis will continue to haunt mankind differently in different spheres.
Mutual sharing of resources is the way to grow in this global village. Respecting and giving every one their dues is the way one will not get into and put any one in crisis. Harmony, growth and peace shall naturally prevail if one follows this. There is abundance in nature, one need not fear. There is enough in this world for everyone’s need but not enough for their greed as Gandhi so succinctly put it.
— Prabhakar Ananthaswamy
October 20, 2009 at 5:22 AM
Employablity????Come on Vineeth.. You guys know the reality. There was a system where quality education was in place and quite a lot of biz was made on it (glocally). But as of now I feel its more concentrated on quantity than quality. Why did we went for quantity? coz scarcity for quality ITians when we had the IT boom. Now that scarcity has been thrown out of the window we now have situation where bargaining power of employers is higher. But day after tomorrow (as you guys see) the bulk of junk is going to be thrown out again. Probably at that time whoever is left will be going after quality again. That’s what I can see. May be my short sight has to be partly blamed but one fact is that each of these scenarios did drive some business and there was hell lot of profit reaped.
Point I found was who ever went for quantity has few of their visions blurred atleast in HR side. I always felt that things like “employerability” ( say good company to work for) is going to gain more ground soon.
Again may be due to short sight I haven’t seen HCL anyway near (even in Indian market) on “employerability!!”
— Jim John