The present day work environment is throwing up challenges each moment. More employees are distressed about their future in the organizations. The scenario looks ominous and the management doesn’t seem to be communicative enough!!!

As a knowledge worker this should help you give a better perspective!

An economic growth engine is well-oiled only if it has a steady supply of skilled resources.If India has to sustain the current pace of growth in its knowledge economy or meet the many ambitions of its private enterprise then a complete overhaul of its many institutes is needed. The skills required for the jobs are not being imparted in the educational institutes; while the educational institutes cry hoarse that there is insufficient interaction and the industry is unclear about what they want!!

While nearly 5 million students graduate every year from a thousand colleges and universities, nearly half of them are not employment-ready due to poor communication and cognitive skills.

What is severely lacking in mainstream education  is the absence of industry-specific skills and domain knowledge. Often, the skills taught in our institutions are not tailored to meet the needs of the industry, resulting in a higher unemployment rate among fresh graduates. It’s unfair to pass the blame to either. It is untrue when they say, that there are NO jobs. Well, there are; only the students are NOT trained to fill ’em up. There is a mismatch with what industry wants and what institutes give.

The oft-cited Nasscom-McKinsey study revealed that only 25% of the engineering graduates are employable. The number of unemployed educated youth between the ages of 15-29 has been growing in urban India and stands at 10 percent for males and 23 percent for females. For urban India, graduate unemployment is 8.2 percent while unemployment among post-graduates is slightly lower, at 7.7 percent.

So What does this Mean?

A new joinee is expected to hit the road running. They are considered work-place ready, if he/she can contribute to the company’s growth by efficiently handling the day-to-day tasks. Typically, IT companies allocate 3-4 months of training at an average cost of Rs. 200,000 per employee to make the freshly-inducted employee productive.
In non-technical domains, the training varies between 2-4 weeks. Is it any wonder that companies these days are considering pre-hire training as part of the standard induction process?

Pre-employment programs are short courses, comprising skill sets identified as essential for entry into the industry. It could be soft skills such as interpersonal skills, collaborating with stakeholders in multiple functions and geographies, cross-cultural interactions, multi-tasking, project management and cognitive skills. Nowadays, corporates are beginning to include pre-hire training as part of its recruitment process.

Pre-hire Training: An Investment or Cost

Consider this: For every employee who falls short of expectations, an organization will have to bear costs equivalent to two and a half times of an individual’s salary. An unproductive new hire may weigh on the company’s efficiency rate and costs as the company ends up spending a lot on training and mentoring.

Training costs make up nearly 2-3 per cent of total staffing budget. Organizations realize that training is not a luxury but a necessity. Streamlining existing training programs for new hires to include mobile training and self-paced learning programs.

Even though pre-hire training may be more expensive on a per employee basis the company will save a lot more in the longer run. Companies can train employees in skillsets relevant to their industry. A pre-hire training program can be the gateway to an organization’s growth if the industry works with the academia to mobilize and train resources in relevant skill sets.

Developing skilled workers enhances their efficiency and flexibility; skills bottlenecks are reduced and skilled workers are able to contribute to the company’s growth and help in economy building. Educational institutions are starting to give vocational training its due especially in a gloomy job market where the IT, Pharma, Telecom, BFSI and retail sectors are not hiring at the fast clip they normally would.

While the debate is still on whether it should be the corporate sector or the academia that takes on the onus of pre-hire training, it cannot be contested anymore that employable skills are a necessity for graduates and post graduates in a hyper competitive economy.

The debate rages on!! Reminded of the incident in my previous organization where the ‘training’ budget was being slashed and the CLO was vehemently resisting the move. The CEO says, “… and after all that training, if the employee leaves us, then?” and the CLO quips, “And if we don’t train them and they stay?”  Check and mate!!!!