Fixing the skilling crisis is need of the hour

Another Covid surge and constantly ongoing lockdown in various parts of the country, especially big cities further amplifies the problems in job opportunities and keeping up with the current jobs. The pandemic has triggered a recession that is the deepest since World War II, which resulted in a widespread unemployment crisis, which will last for a long time and has dented most businesses as well. Many businesses and employers are facing critical challenges in the country's worst economic crisis.

With remote working, developing, improving or reskilling is the need of the hour, for survival one will have to develop new skills. To survive, in this ongoing pandemic acquisition of technical approach is required to electrify smooth functioning of work, and it has swayed everyone to re-skill for new and efficient working methods. The current situation has forced employers to look for additional skilling in candidates, which our educational system is not able to provide.

Re-skilling or fixing skilling is the answer to decrease unemployment and upward mobility.

Change in working methods: Work from home (WFH), is the biggest player in changing the scenario of the working model before and after COVID. Work from home has increased productivity; technology and digitalisation is the biggest contributor in this. To cut back the gap between the skills and the organisation's needs, individuals and companies are working towards reshaping and skilling for adopting new technologies. To ensure engagement, tracking productivity, mentoring, and creating opportunities, the organization will need to adopt this trend to remain competitive.

Multi-tasking: The pandemic is pushing people towards multi-tasking where leaders will have to focus on reskilling or re-shaping the skills of existing employees to match the requirement and to successfully implement a new model and reduce the layoff. For this, companies will be required to carry off a knowledge-sharing culture and employees will have to have various hats. The skill development program will be prepared according to the need of different employees; it can't be one size fit all.

New opportunities need new skills: With the change of technology and working methods, many new opportunities are generated which we could not think or imagine a couple of years back. To get through a new transformation, the workforce and individuals also need to constantly upgrade, and reskill to stay in and beat the competition. New opportunities will also require a new set of skills such as IoT, 3D printing, AI etc,. The current time demands a change in mindset of students as well as in their parents. Only getting a job and financial stability should not be the motive. There is a need for innovation for that innovative mind, and hunger for innovation is needed.

Fixing and upgrading skilling is a continuous programme: It has been found that those companies which always launch and upgrade their reskilling program are also ones who can smoothly adopt the change and address the skill / technological gaps to stay relevant and competitive in the business.

The catch here is preparing and implementing a reskilling program timely. The organisations, which always prepare for the potential changes are likely to be successful. There is a need for continuous long term skill based programs which can help in polishing their workforce according to their talent.

Desperate time demands a desperate solution, and it is an urgent requirement for everyone to adopt new skills to deal with the change of time and to leverage the opportunities. The Covid working era can be the blueprint for the change in the working model.

(The author is Vice- Chancellor, Sanskriti University)