IT cos become mini universities
Companies are trying to overcome talent shortage by setting up massive in-house training facilities.
By TNN |
BANGALORE: Indian information technology faces a severe shortage of talent. Companies are trying to overcome that handicap by setting up massive in-house training facilities and by pushing the government to reform the education system, finds Mini Joseph Tejaswi & R Raghavendra
They are beginning to look like mini technology universities. Such is the shortage of talent and so inadequate is the quality of talent emerging from educational institutions, that India’s biggest IT companies are investing massively in building in-house training and educational facilities.
In another year, Infosys alone would have the capacity to train around 14,000 people a year at its Global Education Centre in Mysore, against the current capacity of 4,500. By that time, the company would have made a cumulative investment of Rs 1,200 crore to develop a training area of 6 million sq ft.
On completion of the entire Mysore facility, Infy would have built up the capacity to train nearly 40,000 people a year. “This would be the largest investment made on any education space in the country. And this would also make us the largest tech university,” says T V Mohandas Pai, director (HR) of Infosys.
For a 16-week training programme , the company spends $5,000 per person. That means, to train 20,000 fresh recruits, it would spend $100 million. In addition to that, the company spends another $40 million to train its existing employees.
They are beginning to look like mini technology universities. Such is the shortage of talent and so inadequate is the quality of talent emerging from educational institutions, that India’s biggest IT companies are investing massively in building in-house training and educational facilities.
In another year, Infosys alone would have the capacity to train around 14,000 people a year at its Global Education Centre in Mysore, against the current capacity of 4,500. By that time, the company would have made a cumulative investment of Rs 1,200 crore to develop a training area of 6 million sq ft.
On completion of the entire Mysore facility, Infy would have built up the capacity to train nearly 40,000 people a year. “This would be the largest investment made on any education space in the country. And this would also make us the largest tech university,” says T V Mohandas Pai, director (HR) of Infosys.
For a 16-week training programme , the company spends $5,000 per person. That means, to train 20,000 fresh recruits, it would spend $100 million. In addition to that, the company spends another $40 million to train its existing employees.
“We will also incur an expenditure of $3 million on the fresh batch of 126 US recruits who have come for a six-week training programme here, and another $1 million on Chinese students ,” Pai says.
Infosys is no exception. Domestic tech firms collectively are expected to invest Rs 12,000 crore towards employee training in the next couple of years.
TCS has ear-marked 4% of its total revenue (of Rs 13,245 crore as on March 2006) for R&D , education and training. The company has a full-fledged training facility in Thiruvananthapuram and another in Hyderabad in addition to smaller training centres in each of its offices across the country. It already has 170 regular training faculty and other visiting trainers.
Wipro Technologies has built a capacity to train 7,000 people a day. Nearly 5% of the total billing time of candidates is spent on being trained. The company has over 200 teaching faculty, with several PhD holders among them.
“We have a great focus on training. We are setting up a special training facility for our BSc and MSc recruits,’’ says TCS CEO & MD S Ramadorai. On an average TCS has an employee utilisation of 78%, which means most of the 22% of its 71,000 people would be in training at any point of time.
Pratik Kumar, executive VP (HR), Wipro, says the present deployable talent pool from engineering colleges is about 20-25 % of the total graduates from these institutions. This puts immense pressure on IT companies to make these graduates ‘job-ready’ . “This compels us to invest heavily in building training facilities, education, and hiring quality teachers from academia,” he says.
Infosys is no exception. Domestic tech firms collectively are expected to invest Rs 12,000 crore towards employee training in the next couple of years.
TCS has ear-marked 4% of its total revenue (of Rs 13,245 crore as on March 2006) for R&D , education and training. The company has a full-fledged training facility in Thiruvananthapuram and another in Hyderabad in addition to smaller training centres in each of its offices across the country. It already has 170 regular training faculty and other visiting trainers.
Wipro Technologies has built a capacity to train 7,000 people a day. Nearly 5% of the total billing time of candidates is spent on being trained. The company has over 200 teaching faculty, with several PhD holders among them.
“We have a great focus on training. We are setting up a special training facility for our BSc and MSc recruits,’’ says TCS CEO & MD S Ramadorai. On an average TCS has an employee utilisation of 78%, which means most of the 22% of its 71,000 people would be in training at any point of time.
Pratik Kumar, executive VP (HR), Wipro, says the present deployable talent pool from engineering colleges is about 20-25 % of the total graduates from these institutions. This puts immense pressure on IT companies to make these graduates ‘job-ready’ . “This compels us to invest heavily in building training facilities, education, and hiring quality teachers from academia,” he says.
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The talent shortage is pushing many companies to hire physics, chemistry and biology graduates. “Our comprehensive three to six months training helps basic science graduates to get on par with engineering grads of premier institutions ,” says Kalpana Jaishankar , vice president (people development & HR operations), Patni Computers. Fresh recruits are also given a simulated scenario by putting them on pseudo-life projects. “It teaches them how to face challenges, how to avoid or come out of pit-falls by sharing knowledge and experience,” Jaishankar says.
Zubin Shroff, managing director , Talent Management Group, a Singapore-based talent acquisition and talent development firm, says that till recently, many companies felt that talent development was the responsibility of the academia and governments. “Now, there is growing realisation that they have to take things into their own hands,” he says.
Infosys will have the capacity to train around 14,000 people a year at its Global Education Centre in Mysore by next year
Wipro Technologies has the capacity to train 7,000 people a day, and has over 200 teaching faculty, with several PhD holders among them
TCS has 170 regular training faculty and other visiting trainers
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