Human Resource – a “commodity” or a “thinking and contributing asset”??

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One question I have wanted to ask the forerunners in the industry is “when and how did a human being become a resource, a commodity, or a material”

I was recently asked by a big corporate whether we can de-skill (you read it right!!) a professional to a level of commodity (read – cheap material!!) that we can use and return!!!

The mass movement and mad rush towards IT career in the past few years has created many “do as you are told” managers and “I am okay to do as told (read I will not apply my most powerful ability – ability to think)” employees and colleges churning them out in masses.

The ability to explore, reflect and abstract are seldom part of the faculties nurtured. This could be because the different stake holders - corporates, education institutions and individuals have different priorities driving them.

With the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the market place, I understand the corporates’ need for different business models. Many of the leading corporates are unwilling to invest in building the abilities as they see that as a catalyst for attrition and an unpredictable cost – what with a wide variety of rapidly changing tools and platforms.

The corporates would prefer ready to deliver (read billable) professionals even at entry level. So organizations would look at partnering with entities that develop teams with specialized abilities. The general model is to pay per use and not have bench strength. So the question asked –“Do you know …. have you worked on…..”

At a college/institution level, the prime driver has become the successful placement record. This ensures a preferred status for the college/institution in the minds of aspiring students. Now, the corporates have decided not to vie with each other for campus recruitments as they would like to build teams as and when required.

The management of the colleges and institutions are looking at partnering and providing corporate readiness programs. The simple definition of corporate readiness is the participant is guaranteed to be placed after completing the program. The abilities can only be nurtured over period of time. There are no injections or pills that can be administered in the final year.

At an individual level, the promise of a guaranteed career is diminishing and hence there is a general lack of confidence. It gets compounded when the individual has not nurtured the internal abilities and hence feels lost. The priority is clearing the tests and interviews. This is done by being exposed to lots and lots of tests and mock interviews.

I fear that we will soon stunt the infiniteness of individual potential and mutate in to technology dependant dwarfs who will need an external trigger for even normal human actions. In the garb of progress we would probably regress!!

The one and only enabling and empowering faculty we possess is the ability to think. Nurture that and we develop many other abilities – ability to learn, apply, discern, choose and so on.

The tools, technologies and platforms only represent a medium to translate and direct our innovation abilities to contribute at a personal, professional and societal level.

The possibilities are only limited only by our enthusiasm and quest for learning. Successful people have moved from being a trained resource to an able and learned contributor. A contributor creates opportunities to learn and apply while a resource waits for opportunities to be used.

How do we nurture a thinking contributor in this era of "fast-food" culture?

Are Graduates Trainable??

are the graduates and engineers trainable???
An interesting exploration began 3 years ago for me, when I embarked on creating learning interventions that would enable engineers to get corporate ready. Over the years I experienced the immense potential in the engineers who took our programs.

The breadth and depth of learning that got unleashed through facilitated group discussions, reflection and consolidation reinforced my belief that the individuals have inherent abilities.

So I was really surprised to read an article recently which said that according to a NASSCOM report that 90% graduates and 75% engineers were rejected by corporates because they were not worth training. I had heard about "not ready" or "not employable" but “not worth training” was a surprise statement which I am unable to accept or digest.

Over the years we have equated communication abilities to how well a person articulates in English. I agree for a BPO or ITES activity where business is directly linked to speaking English. However technical communication could be easily accomplished through diagrams, small phrases and limited vocabulary.

I had first hand experience of this when I had been to Japan to get trained by OKI engineers. The Japanese engineers knew very little English. And we had been given interpreters/translators. Within three to four days we recognized that the communication was getting awry as the interpreters were only transliterating. We all know what confusion and havoc that can be caused in a technical space. We took a conscious decision to ask the interpreters to just observe and we started communicating directly. And to our surprise with our limited Japanese and their limited English and a white board for drawing figures we were able to do without a language interpreter. Over years I have also learnt that if we have the right questions then language is no barrier. Germans, French, Koreans and Japanese have created global products and work with global clients with no language barrier.

Another interesting observation was the power of group learning. Once the group got comfortable with each other, learning became as enjoyable as a game. Every question brought in a new dimension to the technology learning. I must confess I was surprised at what got generated in the classes. And many of the participants had been rejected by corporates and were without a job for over a year. Right now many of them are working in companies like Aricent, Bosch, Sasken and Huawei and are handling key technology projects.

I attribute this to two factors (there may have been others but these stood out). One the confidence in ones self that I can learn and contribute; two having no fear in asking questions even if it was mundane. I think the technology, tool or platform were just vehicles for learning.

I agree on one count that some of the participants had become engineers by peer pressure and the herd mindset that we from the corporates had created. Hence they probably were in a wrong area. But even these people would typically fit in implementation and testing roles.

I would understand if the corporates had said it does not make business sense to invest in training and we would prefer ready candidates. Even though the time taken for individual abilities to unleash is different for different people, our experience has been that most of them are “trainable”.