The main training problem in the manufacturing industry is that most employers are looking for multi-skilled employees who can perform a range of tasks, while many manufacturing workers are unskilled or have only been trained to perform a single job function. One possible solution to this problem is the adoption of a training and development strategy that teaches unskilled employees the skills they need to help propel the organisation forward while at the same time allowing employees to move their career forward. This should help boost the manufacturer’s productivity, decrease employee turnover and possibly solve the talent gap. However, in-house training comes with a number of challenges.
Employee Turnover
High staff turnover can be very costly, especially when a lot of time and money has been invested in employee training. Therefore, it is important that the best performing workers are identified, rewarded for their performance and provided the necessary support and CPD (continuing professional development) to move their career forward. This will help increase the retention rate of key employees.
It is also important that specific process knowledge is never retained by just one employee. Knowledge transfer from an employee to the organisation as a whole (in the form of training course development or social learning) needs to occur often in order to avoid a brain drain resulting from employee turnover. When setting up an employee training strategy for your manufacturing organisation, you should team up with a training expert that has a proven track record in the manufacturing sector.
Logistics Industry
Logistics industry is growing rapidly supported by strong industrial demand. Supply chain managers have to be experts in a diverse host of skills to execute their duties and the ability to analyze and multi-task are a crucial component for them to be successful. The most important skill in logistics is interpersonal skills since managers have to interact with and manage people from top to bottom. It’s a combination of analytical abilities, interpersonal skills, and managerial skills that makes a complete logistics professional, one who’s well equipped to handle infrastructure and organizational challenges.
Traditionally, logistics is viewed as merely transportation (Rail/Road/Air/Sea) despite being more complex and multi-layered than meets the eye. As the business environment transforms into a more mature arena, a strong demand for cross-functional skills will grow. There has been a gradual shift in the logistics industry with technology driven, one-stop solution providers. In such a quickly evolving environment, perfect knowledge and experience in International and National Business Procedures, Regulations and Cycle, knowledge of International Geography, route planning and end to end connectivity, will be of critical importance to determine a successful career in the logistics.
Skill gap: Key challenges faced by the sector
As per the Economic Survey 2017-18, the market size of the logistics sector is seen climbing to $215 billion by 2020, logging 10.5 percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over 2017. According to another report issued by TeamLease, the logistics sector in India is likely to create 3 million new jobs over the next four years largely driven by GST implementation and significant investment in infrastructure. The seven sub-sectors — road freight, rail freight, warehousing, waterways, air freight, packaging, and courier services — are likely to result in 3 million new jobs, upping the employment numbers in the sector from 10.9 million at present to 13.9 million by 2022, the report further added.
Indian logistics grapples with issues of unorganized transport, warehousing, logistics and packaging operations. It is also plagued with inadequate organizational skills, weak leadership qualities at the mid-tier and managerial levels. These reasons prevent Indian logistics from becoming a global leader. This is mainly due to lack of skills and education at the grass root level. The level of inefficiency in logistics has been very prevalent across all modes. The evolving business environment is creating a strong demand pull for quality and efficient logistics services. The core issues revolve around enabling infrastructure, regulatory environment and the fragmented nature of the industry needs fixing. The required pace of efficiency and quality improvement will demand rapid development of capabilities of logistics service providers.
Skill gaps in any industry could arise from a combination of factors such as the gap between the addition of manpower than what is actually required, exit of manpower (attrition) being greater than the replacement and that recruitment not being in alignment with requirements. The key reason for insufficient addition of manpower in Logistics is due to poor image, challenging working conditions along with the rapidly evolving profile of freight forwarding services, which is growing at a faster pace than skill creation.
The exit of manpower is a perceived lack of career trajectory, low investment in staff welfare and the demanding nature of the job. Logistics is considered to be not very “women-friendly”; a perception which is gradually changing but still persists. Moreover, improper recruitment also plays a role in curbing upskilling as job aspirants may find themselves in roles that are not in line with their aptitude and skillsets.
FMCG Industry
By 2030, India will become world’s fifth largest consumer market, according to KPMG. The FMCG industry has also seen a rise in M&A deals and more investors will pump money into this thriving sector. As per a report by Indian Brand Equity Foundation, by the year 2015, the Indian FMCG market will reach US$ 100 billion. With the rising per capita income of the Indian population and the growth of the rural sector, total consumption expenditure will increase from US$ 1411 billion in 2014 to US$ 3600 billion in 2020. Brands will expand to new markets. FMCG companies will continue to utilize e-commerce platforms for selling their products. Government initiatives such as the Food Security Bill, cash subsidies, foreign investment policies etc. will push the growth of the FMCG sector.
There are several stages in the manufacturing, promotion, and distribution of FMCG products. Because FMCG products are consumed by the masses and if anything goes wrong, there will be the greater number of casualties among the consumers. Therefore, several training programs for professionals are available to efficiently manage operations and to effectively implement safety procedures in the food industry.
Training programs are essential for equipping professionals in areas such as new product development, production technology training, marketing of products, rebranding, packaging, food preservation, food, and safety management and more.
Healthcare Industry
With talent shortages in the health care industry only expected to grow in the coming years, organizations need to be proactive about planning for and implementing new talent strategies. Demand for health care will continue to grow as the baby boomer population ages. At the same time, a large percentage of the health care workforce is reaching retirement age. There aren’t enough younger workers to fill the gap. You can read more about the causes and impact of the health care talent shortage in our previous blog post. Health care organizations need to plan for that future now by undertaking comprehensive workforce planning, establishing a robust talent pipeline, focusing on retaining their current workers and appealing to the younger generations who will need to step into those roles.
Workforce Planning
To effectively respond to the changing health care talent landscape, organizations need to take proactive steps to plan for their future needs. The future will look different for every organization. Health care organizations should know what their needs will be in the coming years and what challenges they’ll face attracting workers.
At a high level, we must at least determine what competencies are missing and what new ones are in demand. And we must revisit certificate and degree programs — and the curricula that support them — to ensure they are relevant and align with the required skills the industry needs.This will go a long way toward developing a pipeline of talent who understands the emerging health care technologies and can adapt to the ever-morphing health care landscape.The industry will continue to evolve. We can help today’s health care workers evolve with it.
IT and Services Industry
According to a Nasscom report–Future Skilling for the Digital Economy–India’s digitally skilled workforce is roughly growing at 20% annually but demand will rise at a compounded annual growth rate of about 30% between FY19 and FY23.
“Therefore, incorporating digital skill development has become a key business priority with 94% of organisations having integrated digital skill building as part of their overall organisational strategy. Further, adoption of online and technology-powered learning has grown, with 63% organisations leveraging online platforms for learning,” the report said.The Indian IT-ITeS industry is adopting a multi-pronged strategy to fulfil its talent needs. According to the report, organisations have found it conducive to use a mix of ‘build’ and ‘buy’ to fulfil their talent needs.
As it moves into the mainstream and demand increases, scalable learning models and platforms are used to ‘build’ capability – which refers to training talent in-house. As per the findings of the report, about 77% of organisations prefer building talent internally while 38% of companies used gig workers and freelancers to fill the talent gap.
An interesting trend of acquisition activity in the IT-ITeS industry has been ‘acqui-hiring’, where a company is bought for the capability it possesses. As per the survey, this creates a direct link between business strategy and talent creation. About 21% of companies surveyed used acqui-hiring to augment their existing talent pool.
With half of its population under the age of 25 years and two-thirds under 35 years, India is poised to become the largest workforce in the world by 2027. While these figures point to a big advantage, they also reflect a major challenge. US$ 1.97 trillion in GDP growth is at risk over the next decade due to a severe gap in relevant skills. According to Accenture’s Fueling India’s Skill (R)evolution report, only 20% of technical graduates are considered job-ready for the IT and ITES sector due to lack of relevant skills in emerging technologies such as data analytics, cloud, IoT and AI.
Indian IT firms are realizing the many benefits of upskilling and reskilling employees instead of hiring more employees. Providing skilling opportunities to employees not only cuts down on hiring costs and time lag in bridging the skill gap, but also improves the employer brand. Companies recognize the need to be agile to stay ahead of the competition in today’s volatile markets. In order to build an effective solution to address the skill gap issue, futuristic IT firms take a proactive approach and track their upskilling/reskilling requirements on a consistent basis. They realize that reskilling is not a one-time fix as innovative technologies are constantly disrupting industrial processes and market behaviors.