How Organisations Must Prepare Today To Build Tomorrow’s Workforce

The state of digital skills in India is a mixed bag at present. A survey by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) released last year shows roughly 73 per cent of young Indians lack routine email skills. On the other hand, the need for digital skills is also rapidly growing, especially in India. Sample this: Research commissioned by Amazon Web Services (AWS) found that India will need nine times as many digital skilled workers by 2025. Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) skills are imperative in today’s day and age, but not just for the 15-29 age group as surveyed by NSSO. The current Indian workforce across hierarchies and departments needs upskilling.

A holistic upskilling 

Digital skills are no longer restricted to roles associated with ICT and IT departments. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to the confines of their homes for weeks and months, the rate of digitisation has skyrocketed across sectors, industries, products and services. Digital skills are making inroads into non-technical or non-IT functions and roles led by marketing, communications, finance and accounting, sales, research & development (R&D), and engineering, among others.

In fact, according to the recruitment platform, Indeed.com, some of the highest-paying non-IT jobs that are in hot demand include content manager, marketing manager, sales manager, project manager, construction manager, investment banker, and business analyst, among others. Yet, none of these roles today can be done without digital skills.

Hence, organisations and employers are feeling an urgent need to train leaders and employees in digital skills across all departments and hierarchies. From junior sales executives to business development managers, all employees and leaders today must upskill in areas like data analytics, email marketing and search engine optimisation to help them close deals. No longer can they merely rely on their marketing colleagues. Similarly, the accounts department today must be trained in cybersecurity to avoid crucial business information leakage.

In doing so, Indian organisations can improve the current dismal rate of only 12 per cent workforce being digitally skilled, as found by the AWS commissioned research. This can not only be done through training but also by creating fresh digital jobs.

New digital avenues

As such, organisations are introducing new roles across departments specifically designed to address the rising digital needs of their business. With game-changing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies redefining how business is done and roles function, new jobs are being created that make use of them optimally.

The manufacturing sector, for instance, is witnessing a paradigm shift under Industry 4.0 in terms of new digital roles that are also replacing some of the old jobs. Today, factory shopfloors require a digitally skilled workforce that can work along with AI, robots, and technologically-advanced machines rather than workers who are merely trained in the conventional shopfloor skills. 

As a result, some of the conventional jobs like factory workers, warehouse workers and data entry clerks are becoming obsolete, and replaced by digital workers. As a result, from being equipped with spanners and pliers to carrying tablets and working on software that now runs these same shopfloors, the manufacturing workforce is going through a complete makeover.

Source for skills

Even as this need to train and upskill the current Indian workforce in digital skills is rising, there are also an equal number of sources and opportunities being made available. Today, employers and organisations can turn to umpteen upskilling platforms that can help them train their workforce in new digital skills like data science, business analytics, AI & ML, DevOps, and digital marketing, among other things.

Similarly, industry associations like CII and NASSCOM are offering collaborative training programs in digital skills to help India prepare its future digital workforce. At the same time, the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) of the Government of India is offering myriad courses on the subject by setting up a dedicated portal called ‘eSkillIndia’.

These opportunities and avenues for upskilling are a testament to the growing need and potential for digital skills that organisations and employers could learn as they prepare to be part of a new and developed India.

The author is Archana Krishna, Co-founder and CHRO, Simplilearn.