Corporate India skilling staff on war footing to stay ahead

Corporate India is skilling its employees on a war footing, as companies look to become more agile and future-ready in an increasingly digital, fast-changing world. Organisations including Larsen & Toubro, InMobi, Vedanta Group, P&G and Castrol are investing heavily in employee skill development, with L&D annual budgets going up, in some cases, by up to 100%.

In-house platforms/institutes, facilitated trainings, gamification, group and individual coaching, self-paced learning offerings, tie-ups with skilling platforms and leading engineering colleges and B-schools are among the many options on offer to upskill and reskill employees in areas spanning everything from digital and sustainability to people management, and leadership.

L&T has 18+ dedicated training institutes; Inmobi plans to focus on levelling up knowledge, skills and mindset for AI, ML, automation, analytics etc; Castrol has global tie-ups with INSEAD, Degreed, Coursera and LinkedIn Learning. At P&G, every employee is exposed to at least five learning opportunities every quarter across different formats. This includes everyone from contract employees, plant technicians to senior leadership.

“Upskilling and reskilling are an important aspect of the learning and development landscape at L&T as these are aligned with growth, new lines of businesses and new projects. In addition, we are extensively using new technology such as IoT, automation, LIDAR, BIM, robotics etc, which demands regular upskilling of our employees in these areas,” said C Jayakumar, EVP and head-corporate HR, L&T.

L&T’s training institutes/academies include Leadership Development Academy, Lonavala, Institute of Project Management, Chennai and Vadodara, Corporate Technology & Engineering Academy, Mysore and Madh, Safety Innovation School, and eight Construction Skills Training Institutes.

At InMobi, approximately 80% of the organisation was upskilled in 2022. “As we continue to scale the organisation, our focus has been to build global programmes which are accessible and consistent in its content and delivery to drive meaningful outcomes,” said Sahil Mathur, CHRO, InMobi Group.

Over the last two years, Castrol India has invested heavily in employee skill development and leveraged AI technologies to identify job groups, map competencies as per jobs, and offer layered learning through a mix of courses, certifications, talks, virtual learning etc, said Maria P Valles, vice president, people & culture, Castrol India

“Growing our employees’ future skills is imperative to Castrol’s long-term people development strategy. For 2023, we have put together a mix of push-and-pull initiatives where employee learning is intertwined with performance reviews and employee rewards,” she added.

Madhu Srivastava, CHRO, Vedanta, says the dynamic times we live in require organisations to continuously upskill their talent to stay relevant. Vedanta believes in the concept of growth from within, making it essential to focus on upskilling and reskilling of employees.

“Each Vedanta Group company has its own training and skilling budget. Over the past few years, the budget increases have ranged anywhere from 15% to 100%. There’s been a significant increase in the planned coverage for senior executive coaching and education as well, to almost double our planned budget for the upcoming financial year,” added Srivastava.

At P&G, learning is continuously prioritised, right from the technicians that produce products at its manufacturing sites to leaders driving these businesses, says P M Srinivas, head-human resources, P&G Indian sub-continent.

“We understand the importance of a personalised approach to learning. Our detailed learning offers modules that are self-led, leader-led, learning campaign led, coach-led, delivered via in-classroom sessions and through a customised learning path. These cut across themes including digital upskilling, functional mastery, consumer understanding, managers’ capability, health & well-being, learning for new hires, leadership essentials, among various others,” he added.