Higher Education Institutes Play a Pivotal Role in Preparing Talent for Employability: Study by BML Munjal University

Key highlights from the survey with HR Leaders:

• 89% say their organizations will experience strong growth over the next 1 to 3 years

• 50% say they need to address the skill gap in technology roles

• Reskilling of employees and hiring talent is a top priority for 43% and 27% respectively

• Entry level talent will be most sought after to fulfill the gap, say 37%

• The importance of soft skills cannot be overemphasized say 38%

• An overwhelming 84% say that higher education institutions must change the way they groom students to make them 'more' employable

• Higher Education Institutions must focus on imparting training to help develop soft skills such as communication, creativity, resilience, empathy, and integrity, say 43%

• A majority, 49% say that moonlighting is acceptable as long as it is declared

BML Munjal University (BMU), a Hero Group initiative, hosted the third edition of the Leadership Summit on 19^th November 2022 at the university campus in Manesar. On the sidelines of the summit, BMU released a report titled Future Of Work & Human Challenges: Technology & Beyond (FOW). The report explores how the Future Of Work is going to be shaped by technology and reveals findings from a survey with HR leaders on business sentiment, the existing skills gap especially with soft skills and the role of higher education institutions to prepare a future, more employable workforce. Padma Shri Sh. Kiran Karnik, Chairman, IIIT Delhi & Former President, NASSCOM was the keynote speaker at the Summit and unveiled the report along with the dignitaries at the event.

Launch of the report - Future Of Work & Human Challenges Technology & Beyond

At the summit, BMU hosted three-panel discussions around a) future of work and technology b) future of work beyond technology and c) future of work and human challenges with C-suite speakers from Capgemini India, Adani Group, NASSCOM, Microsoft, Datamatics India, Google Cloud, and many more. The discussions examined the intersections between technology and control in a variety of work contexts, using both quantitative and qualitative lenses and also focused on the fundamental human challenges that lie ahead with the future of work that go beyond technology.

Dr. Kiran Karnik, while speaking at the Summit said, "There could be various alternative scenarios of the future, as related to technology and jobs. One could well argue that the future is not about jobs, but about livelihoods; that the current concerns about "quality" jobs which assure social security benefits is ill-founded. Instead, we need to look at livelihoods, with part-time, fixed-period and gig work being predominant - supported, of course, by a universal system of retirement, pension and social security guarantees. Also, there is no cause to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) or robots as threats: the future will not be a man or machine dichotomy, but a man plus machine model."

The Future Of Work survey

A positive business outlook

Despite the global outlook, HR Leaders are confident about the prospects of business growth of their organization over the next 1 to 3 years. 89% say their organizations should experience strong growth but market instability (36%), inflation (21%), and future COVID-19 variants (23%) are the most likely to play truant to this. Only 13% cite talent or skills shortage to be a challenge to growth.

Skill gaps and strategies to address these challenges

49% of the respondents say IT / mobile / data analytics / R&D are the business areas that need to address potential skill gaps the most, followed by executive management and sales & marketing at around 12% each.

43% of HR leaders state that reskilling employees is therefore their top most priority followed by hiring talent at 26.6%. Nearly 18% say that helping employees navigate workplace challenges is a conscious strategy to help retain talent especially in a post COVID-19 workplace that is defined by change and uncertainty.

Freshers (38%) form the largest cohort of talent that HR Leaders are looking to recruit to address the skill gap in their organizations followed by those in middle and senior management at 30% each.

A new work order is giving way to the importance of soft-skills. 38% say that the importance of soft skills cannot be overemphasized as it allows talent to adapt quickly to a changing economy and needs. 31% state that a lack of soft skills among candidates can limit the company's productivity.

A new work order is also evident in how organizations are choosing to reward and motivate employees. HR Leaders say that both effort and achievement are celebrated equally to motivate employees and not just the latter. Further, 25% also say that failures are celebrated that furthers the importance of putting in the optimum effort.

Teamwork 57%, followed by creativity 54%, and communication 50%, emerge as the top three soft skills that are most in demand.

Higher education institutions can play a fundamental role in preparing talent for employability. An overwhelming 84% of respondents say that higher education institutions must change the way they groom students to make them 'more' employable by imparting soft skills training. 43% emphasize on a focus on soft skills such as communication, creativity, resilience, empathy, and integrity, 21% say hands-on education to prepare students for the 'real world' and 18% say that there must be a stress on helping develop a learners mind set and curiosity as opposed to knowledge acquisitions. Students would do well to develop a tolerance for uncertainty and a penchant for initiative, advising 30% of HR Leaders to be able to maneuver the new emerging world of work.

In an interesting finding on the issue of moonlighting, a majority of HR respondents are okay with the trend. While 43% were not in favor and called it cheating, 49% say they would be okay with it as long as the employee declares it.

Speaking at the Summit, Prof Shyam Menon, Vice Chancellor, BML Munjal University, said, "We all know how technology is shaping the present work environment and the emerging technologies are going to shape the future of work as well. But factors beyond technology namely the human aspects would not have any less impact either. The report through its outreach to HR professionals in the industry collates the 'hiring wisdom' and engages with the ideas like growth mindset, meta-skills, and industry-academia integration. The report has highlighted how FutureTech, Growth Mindset, Quality of Life, Corporate Citizenship, Strong Industry-Academia Partnership along with Meta Skills, SDGs and scientific practices from Indian Knowledge Systems are going to inform and shape the future of work in India. I won't be surprised if this report sets a trend in the country and pioneers research and practice initiatives in academia and industry respectively to deep dive into predictive analysis in the field of future of work."

BMU also collaborated with TeamLease Services Ltd., one of India's leading people supply chain companies offering a range of solutions to 3500+ employers for their hiring, productivity and scale challenges to understand the skills and jobs that will be in demand over the next few years. Based on their data, TeamLease suggests that the following domain skills will be most in demand - cyber security and ethical hacking, blockchain, biotechnology, business analytics, cloud computing, product management, machine learning, digital marketing & SEO, financial management, and robotics.

Also, our interviews with HR leaders have revealed why the focus must have to be also on both hard and soft skills. The new skills set that is being discussed now is meta skills. Meta skill is a "higher-order" skill that enables one to better learn other skills and improve the existing ones. Essentially, meta skills are the foundation for developing, cultivating, and executing other skills. For example, although the ability to communicate in english can be considered a specific skill but knowing how to develop the skills to learn any language is considered a meta skill.

Survey methodology

BMU commissioned a study with 250 HR Leaders and interviewed 20+ academic and industry leaders.

HR Leaders who responded to the survey represent a mix of industries and included IT/ITeS, Consulting, Banking and Financial services, manufacturing, automobile, retail, oil and gas, and renewable energy among others. 59% were women HR Leaders while men HR Leaders constituted the other 41%.

About BML Munjal University

Named after the late Founder Chairman of the Hero Group, BML Munjal University (BMU) is a unique not-for-profit initiative founded by the promoters of the Hero Group. BMU is mentored by Imperial College London and is engaged in creating, preserving, and imparting internationally benchmarked knowledge and skills. The university seeks to transform higher education in India by creating a world-class innovative teaching, learning, and research environment. It envisions becoming a nursery for the leaders of tomorrow and a repository of knowledge. The School of Management at BML Munjal University has been ranked 54th among all management institutions in All India in the NIRF Rankings 2022 and has also attained the diamond subject rating by QS I-Gauge.

The University offers undergraduate to doctoral programmes comprising BA (Hons) in Economics, BBA, BCom (Hons), BA LLB (Hons), BBA LLB (Hons), BBA-MBA Integrated Programme, B.Tech at the undergraduate level, and MBA, LLB (Hons) and Ph.D. at the postgraduate level.

For more details, log in to www.bmu.edu.in.