The growing need for Employability Skills in India

Recently I attended a webinar co-hosted by the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and National Skill Development Corporation of India (NSDC) discussing the opportunities in skill development for businesses in India over the next few years. In the one hour presentation they spoke about initiatives, programs and competitions undertaken by the NSDC and how businesses must focus on skill development for a country which will soon have the largest working population in the world. Though the opportunity is great and the platform might seem perfect to tap the commercial potential, the information and numbers raise a bigger issue (and one that was left unanswered in the webinar) that what are the skills that an emerging India needs?

Academic skills and technical skills have often been the core focus of the government and the result has been fairly limited, with minimal increase in opportunity or empowerment. Of late, there has been an gradual shift towards vocational skills, which is definitely a breath of fresh air, for both job-seekers and employers alike. In fact Corporate India, with each passing year, renders the current crop of graduates more and more unemployable. For a country where the working age population will very soon be far in excess of those dependent on them and will continue to do so till 2040, this is a very disturbing statistic. (source: World Bank).  Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head when he said 'India does not have problem of unemployment but that of unemployability'. Hence the focus must undoubtedly be on developing skills that transcend technical or academic capability and help create professionals who are not only ready to face the challenges of a dynamic and competitive business world but also have the flexibility, intelligence and practical skills to sufficiently excel in their respective roles within an organization.

According to the survey, carried out by a number of agencies (and endorsed by the PM’s National Council on Skill Development and the NSDC), the top three most important general skills identified were motivation, reliability and teamwork, while the top three most important specific skills are entrepreneurship, effective communication and use of modern tools and technologies. This is some very important information coming directly from the corporate world and should almost become the tenets of basic skill-based training in India. The importance of the survey results and the focus on developing these skills (both general and specific) cannot be emphasized more, because they have a three pronged effect. 

First, they provide individuals seeking employment with a first hand account of what skills they must possess and, if necessary, develop in order to catch the eye of a potential employer. Of course, recognizing skills and developing them are only primary steps, putting them to practice and creating a habit of learning new skills is the ultimate goal. The onus to do this is not just on the job seeker but also training organizations and businesses to identify innovative methods of developing and teaching these skills. In todays digital age, the use of technology is imperative for educational and vocational institutes to attract the youth and make the learning as enjoyable as possible. Learning happens best when the learner is so engrossed and engaged that he does not realize he is learning. 

Next, by developing these skills individuals are not just molded to excel in corporate or government positions but also develop a sense of innovativeness and creativity. There in lies the hope that we are not just empowering job seekers to achieve career goals but also create a section of individuals that will take the entrepreneurial path, at some point in their careers, and will eventually become job creators. 

Last, through the development of these skills job seekers will find it mush easier to accentuate their core academic and technical skills and employers will find that (a) hiring candidates becomes much easier (b) their investment in training new employees and in turn, attrition rate is lower and, (c) productivity is greatly increased because now corporations can focus less on teaching people how to do work and more on actually assigning them to more complex, diverse projects. Hence, to summarize, the development of these skills greatly improves the chances of (a) getting hired then, (b) staying hired and finally, (c) personal and professional success. Could there be more valuable advice for new graduates and young professionals? I think not.

Here is an info graphic that Last-Bench created almost a year back highlighting the importance of soft skills for job applicants. In fact the development of these skills must become a compulsory module in a lll colleges and universities to ensure graduates receive complete education.

If you have any questions, comments or would like to learn more about any of the tools or techniques to improve your soft skills please write to us at chalktalk@last-bench.com

For more information on our skill development programs please click here.

What makes a great leader?

"Leadership" is a topic that is talked about so much nowadays, it would be safe to say that it's 'in vogue!' Everything you try to do or are doing, you either question yourself or get questioned about whether you're a leader in the particular activity or not. But what really makes a great leader? What separates the 'also rans' from the 'inspiring greats'? What traits or behaviors do great leaders have in common? Can YOU 'learn' how to be a great leader? 

Today, I'm not going to define or explain what  leadership is because there are so many great gurus who have already done so and so many of them who have shown the world by exercising it. Instead, I'll share an experience from my previous job who I thought was a great leader amongst the common folks.

Agile Critical Thinking Webinar on Decision-Making

The Center for Agile Thinking  and iPleaders jointly organized a webinar on 'The Skills You Need to Make Better Decisions in a Complex, Competitive and Dynamic Workplace' conducted by Prof. Anne P. Kreitzberg, Co-founder and Principal at The Center for Agile Thinking. Here is a brief overview and a few stills from the well-received event...

Last-Bench!: The journey so far and what lies ahead...

Every couple months I ask myself questions like - "How have we been doing as a startup? What is our progress? Are we focussing on the same vision or have we deviated? What should we be doing as we power into the future?". This is when I call for the "SPECIAL" meeting outside work with my partners in crime - Sajid and Venkat, just to discuss these things and ideate with them.

Very recently, instead of me asking this time, someone from the VC community asked me this question and I confidently replied:

"We've been executing projects in the skill development and educational content design areas which has helped us get in revenue and also allowed us to do research towards our larger goal of delivering personalized skill development online."

Having said that, I'm very proud to announce that we've come into an exclusive joint venture with Cognetics Corporation. Both Congetics and Last-Bench! share a common vision and launched The Center for Agile Thinking in India too. The mission is to help businesses achieve their goals by raising the level and quality of decision-making within their organizations. As a team, we hold great experience, subject matter expertise, technology expertise and a network to tap into. We've taken a first stab at our online platform and have began our development activities.

I do believe we're going in the right direction and with the help of my super team and great advisors we are getting closer to our larger goal!

Will keep ya'll updated! 

-Rajeev (@rajeevchhajer)

Last-Bench featured on CNBC Awaaz

In late september, when we signed up for an online 30 minute personal mentoring session with Gozoop's Ahmed Naqvi to help us align our Social Media strategy, little did we imagine we'd end up getting a WHOLE lot more. In fact we were geared up to just listen to what Ahmed had to say and try  and get as many of our questions answered within the duration of the hangout. Hence when we got a call from Ankita Gaba (of Social Samosa, who organized this amazing event) asking if we were willing to have our mentoring session covered by CNBC Awaaz, our response (quite understandably) was a resounding YES! It's not everyday that you (a) get picked by CNBC Awaaz as the startup they want to cover for a entrepreneurial feature (b) welcome the immensely knowledgable Ms. Gaba to your office (c) get your strategy fixed by Mr. Naqvi. A one-of-a-kind triple whammy! :D 

Of course our joy soon translated into a massive bout of nervousness by D-Day morning and it was a rush against time to ensure we got our message perfected for the viewing audience. But more than the TV feature, it was important that we didn't lose focus from the objective of this exercise - to learn, get ideas and tips from Ahmed himself and understand how we can leverage the massive opportunity that Social Media provides small companies like ours. A few cups of coffee, lots of notes and brainstorming were enough for us to feel confident about getting past this exciting yet important day.

In retrospect, the could not have gone any better. We really accomplished all the we had intended to. Ms. Gaba too was kind enough to build on Ahmed's invaluable, precise and thought-provoking advice and help us get some expert tips to start doing the right things to gain momentum on Social Media. The interview with CNBC, as expected, gave us much needed mileage and the opportunity to be discovered not just from a local, but from a national perspective as well. We've heard some great feedback and inputs from friends and family who saw us on TV (one even refusing to believe he was seeing us on TV and had to change the channel and go back to ensure it wasn't a 'lack-of-sleep induced hallucination' :D) and also happened to generate a lot of interest from students, professors and educational institutions curious as to how we can help them achieve their goals. 

We'd like to end by saying a big than you to Ankita Gaba for providing us with all the help, support and the opportunity, Ahmed Naqvi for his great insights, advice and incredible patience and CNBC Awaaz for choosing us amongst the many other startups to be featured on their show. Needless to say, we're over the moon :)

Here is the CNBC awaaz video and pics from the event:

Click here for pictures of the mentoring session & CNBC Awaaz

For all of our friends outside of India:
If you wish to view the CNBC video, kindly send us an email on chalktalk@last-bench.com with the subject as "CNBC VIDEO LINK" and we'll be glad to share with you the link for the video (with english subtitles).

Last-Bench visits Pune...

At Last-Bench, whenever we see a window of opportunity we strive to make the most of it and, more often than not, push ourselves to the limit - both, as a group and as individuals. It's probably the will to succeed or the passion we possess for our work or maybe it's just a 'startup thing'. Either ways, it ensures satisfaction and pleasure in our results and achievements :) Thus far, we've limited this drive to our 'work' mainly because we've never had the opportunity to extend it to 'play' as well! Hence, when a client meeting was scheduled in Pune we decided to capitalize on this chance and decided to make it into a company outing enthused with learning, adventure and, true to our ethos, lots of fun!

The day began rather early (even by startup terms!) at 6 am. Three quarters of the traveling troupe (Rajeev, Samir and Venkat) were being driven to Pune from Mumbai, with one member (Abhishek) already in Pune the previous day. [For all those concerned, we did not abandon Moushmi and Sajid :P They're currently taking some, much needed, time off :)]. The drive out of Mumbai and into Pune was fantastic. Such pleasure to encounter virtually no traffic as you cut through the city! Perks of early morning travel, we assume :) Then driving through the picturesque ghats on the expressway and stopping for the customary 'chai' couldn't have been a better way to start off, what would prove to be, a very important day for the company. 

The journey itself wasn't limited to refreshments and sightseeing, the objective was to use the travel time to discuss important issues like marketing strategy and plan, in the short term. This also was the cue for 'Mr. Creative' Samir to take a quick nap and dream about his next video masterpiece :D At this juncture, our focus is on social media and how we can leverage it to expand our reach, interact with potential customers, generate leads and eventually drive sales and revenue through it. We spent a good part of our journey reflecting on the learnings of our recently concluded Social Media mentoring session (look out for the blog post discussing it; coming soon!) and identifying areas of focus, goals, objectives and mediums. What remains is formulating a strategy (focused on identifying content areas, creating the content bank and defining roles & responsibilities) and, of course, actually executing the plan! 

We got into Pune around 10.30 am and straight away headed to our client's office for the meeting. After a set of preliminary talks in Mumbai, the purpose of this meeting in Pune was to finalize and, in principle, kick off the partner project. To sum up the discussion in a sentence (though we cannot to justice to the efforts put in from both sides), it was perfect! We were able to understand each others' strengths and how each one of us can contribute (and complement each other) to ensure overall success. Nothing like an association that is mutually beneficial! In retrospect, we feel that we (Last-Bench) got a little extra. We were able to observe, analyze and understand how a larger, education-focused company operates. We got good insights into their content creation and delivery standards, how they approach the entire process, where they separate their functions, where they intervene and collaborate, and how to really drive your product from being an idea to the complete, finished article. All this, while ensuring you never waver from the ultimate goal- solving the problem your customer faces and providing the best possible solution. 

It felt that we'd hit an experiential goldmine! We had come to Pune with the goal to leverage the opportunity in front of us and we did just that AND MORE. It would probably be safe to say we came, we LEARNT, we conquered! :)

Hey, but all work and no play is against the Last-Bench philosophy! So, we wrapped up our meeting and headed for a nice 'lunch + bonding session' at a popular eatery, called Tareef,  recommended to us by a local.  The food at the restaurant was absolutely wonderful and the ambience extraordinary. The calm soothing music allowed us to reflect on an excellent day and the delectable spread that was laid out provided us with the much-needed energy to discuss all things not related to work :D  The sumptuous meal and jovial conversation was followed up with a major highlight (and surprise)- a course of sweet paan [Betel leaf with coconut, fruit preserves, rose petal preserves and various spices]. Quite the perfect way to end an amazing experience in Pune.

Our journey back was more sombre and reflective. We imbibed all the learnings and thought about how we could benefit from all that we had discussed, seen and experienced. It was late evening by the time we headed back to our respective homes but all of us, individually and as a group, suddenly stood taller and more confident from the experience. And what could be better than the fact that we ourselves learned via the exact same methods we employ while teaching - Practicality and Fun! Touché!

Super Saturday at Bombay Scottish School (Powai)

Saturday mornings, for the majority, are generally reserved for fun and would scarcely be associated with any sort of learning. Hence, when we were approached to conduct a leadership and goal setting session for the students of Bombay Scottish School in Powai, Mumbai on a saturday morning at 9 am, we were a little skeptical. Then we heard there would be kids from grade 6-10 and it got us quite worried. 

Don't get us wrong. We love having sessions with students of all ages, they ask some of the best questions and often think at a level that would put top intellectuals to shame! But, saturday mornings are really when they want to just curl up in bed and look forward to a gigantic brunch comprising pancakes, syrup and tons of chocolate! And here we wanted them to sit through 2 hours of interaction, discussion and brain picking. Uh oh!

Now, in retrospect, we cannot reiterate how wrong we were! Of course, all our sessions are fun-filled, practical and full of activities but this one turned out to be something special. From the offset we realized that we were dealing with smart, enthusiastic and ambitious students. They almost certainly are going to end up right at the top in any career of their choice. Their questions were detailed, thoughtful and insightful. Their comments were crisp, accurate and thought provoking. Their enthusiasm and energy unparalleled. 

Our initial concern was waved off and their confident and pin point reply to our skepticism resonated around the room- 'What Saturday morning blues? We're always ready to learn!'  And then it struck us- these kids have two things which we, individually and as a society, really need - (a) Curiosity and, (b) the Will to Succeed. You almost certainly cannot teach that! It almost felt that by the end of the session we learnt as much, if not more, than this bunch of exemplary, future leaders!

Thank you to all the students who were present for an absolutely wonderful time and an even bigger thanks to the management, principal, teachers and staff of Bombay Scottish School (Powai) for giving us this opportunity. Can't think of a better way to spend a saturday morning :D

Here are some pics: