Sarvesh
Gupta, a mid-level manager in his early 40s at a Bangalore-based
information technology company, had hit a dead end in his career.
He began as a software coder, but was in recent years elevated to the post of a manager, which now required emerging technology and customer domain knowledge skills. Clueless about the new role, Sarvesh's motivational and performance levels began to sink.
His organisation, a mid-tier software firm, was worried. With talent making a beeline for top information technology services companies, finding a replacement for Sarvesh would be tough. The company soon worked out a re-skilling exercise for such employees who are now being trained to survive the changing business environment. Sarvesh is now doing well and is being touted for the next promotion.
This is the story across most mid-tier IT services companies like NIIT Technologies, Mindtree, Mphasis and Zensar Technologies.
"As industry growth rates taper off, the base of mid-level managers (many of whom are not billable) becomes an expensive resource pool for the mid-tier IT companies," says Padmaja Alaganandan, leader people and change practice, PwC. It is a lot more meaningful to re-utilise or re-deploy this section of the workforce, she adds. The industry average salary for mid-managers is in the range of Rs 12 lakh to Rs 25 lakh per annum.
NIIT and Mindtree are working on training their mid-level managers on technologies related to specified customer domains. The two companies are working towards helping their mid-level managers become mini-CEOs or business heads.
"Training also includes building skills on operations, emotional thinking and understanding millennials," says Deepa V Mukherjee, head, training and development, NIIT Technologies. On an average, NIIT spends up to Rs 45,000 per year on training one manager. Post training, these managers have contributed 38% to the margins of the project, up from 12%, pre-training.
Training the managers was one of the prime drivers of productivity by almost 2% in the case of Mindtree. "The ability to spot new business opportunities and productive customer dealings have both gone up among these trained managers," says Mindtree, executive vice president and chief people officer Ravi Shankar.
Other companies like Polaris, Hexaware, KPIT and Mphasis run such training programmes on the "university" model where employees are expected to participate.
The impact of training its mid managers has helped Mphasis forge a strong and long-standing relationship with its clients. Ever since, the company has pushed for training of all its managers.
Under its training arm, HexaVarsity, Hexaware Technologies is running two programmes for mid-level managers. One is a domain-specific training and the other concentrates on soft skills, says its chief people officer, Amberin Memon.
Consultants like KPMG and Ernst and Young, too, emphasise the need for mid-tier companies to focus the training on emerging technologies. "Though reskilling is needed in companies across all sectors, the need gets accentuated in IT services," says Nischae Suri, partner and head of people and change practice, KPMG.
When their very survival is at stake, this may be the only option they are left, adds Samiron Ghoshal, Ernst and Young, partner and leader, IT advisory practice.
He began as a software coder, but was in recent years elevated to the post of a manager, which now required emerging technology and customer domain knowledge skills. Clueless about the new role, Sarvesh's motivational and performance levels began to sink.
His organisation, a mid-tier software firm, was worried. With talent making a beeline for top information technology services companies, finding a replacement for Sarvesh would be tough. The company soon worked out a re-skilling exercise for such employees who are now being trained to survive the changing business environment. Sarvesh is now doing well and is being touted for the next promotion.
This is the story across most mid-tier IT services companies like NIIT Technologies, Mindtree, Mphasis and Zensar Technologies.
"As industry growth rates taper off, the base of mid-level managers (many of whom are not billable) becomes an expensive resource pool for the mid-tier IT companies," says Padmaja Alaganandan, leader people and change practice, PwC. It is a lot more meaningful to re-utilise or re-deploy this section of the workforce, she adds. The industry average salary for mid-managers is in the range of Rs 12 lakh to Rs 25 lakh per annum.
NIIT and Mindtree are working on training their mid-level managers on technologies related to specified customer domains. The two companies are working towards helping their mid-level managers become mini-CEOs or business heads.
"Training also includes building skills on operations, emotional thinking and understanding millennials," says Deepa V Mukherjee, head, training and development, NIIT Technologies. On an average, NIIT spends up to Rs 45,000 per year on training one manager. Post training, these managers have contributed 38% to the margins of the project, up from 12%, pre-training.
Training the managers was one of the prime drivers of productivity by almost 2% in the case of Mindtree. "The ability to spot new business opportunities and productive customer dealings have both gone up among these trained managers," says Mindtree, executive vice president and chief people officer Ravi Shankar.
Other companies like Polaris, Hexaware, KPIT and Mphasis run such training programmes on the "university" model where employees are expected to participate.
The impact of training its mid managers has helped Mphasis forge a strong and long-standing relationship with its clients. Ever since, the company has pushed for training of all its managers.
Under its training arm, HexaVarsity, Hexaware Technologies is running two programmes for mid-level managers. One is a domain-specific training and the other concentrates on soft skills, says its chief people officer, Amberin Memon.
Consultants like KPMG and Ernst and Young, too, emphasise the need for mid-tier companies to focus the training on emerging technologies. "Though reskilling is needed in companies across all sectors, the need gets accentuated in IT services," says Nischae Suri, partner and head of people and change practice, KPMG.
When their very survival is at stake, this may be the only option they are left, adds Samiron Ghoshal, Ernst and Young, partner and leader, IT advisory practice.
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