Punjab Technical Education Board

Company Trained Punjab Employees

Companies are turning to the training department of Punjab technical education board to attract and retain much-coveted information technology (IT) workers. Given the scarcity of IT workers, the technical skills required by organizations are not being met by the skills available in the market. To alleviate their predicament, management is using training as an incentive to attract and retain IT workers. Companies are providing training to promising newly recruited technical talent to develop technical skills in-house. They are also exploiting training to provide continuous education to their best technical employees to discourage them from transferring to other companies. In addition, companies are developing partnerships with local community colleges to provide new recruits and current employees with the level of training they need.

Trainers are finding creative ways to share up technical staff in the battle against the growing skills shortage. The growing gap between technical skills needed by organizations and the skills available on the job market is becoming a full-blown executive headache. And, increasingly, the top brass is learning to spell relief t-r-a-i-n-i-n-g.

In many organizations, the so-called skills gap is affording trainers a rare spotlight as they seek to minimize its impact. They're rising to the challenge by molding technical workers out of promising technical talent, using training as an incentive to retain them and by using pre-employment assessments and testing tools to spot diamonds in the rough.

"We'll take any live, warm body if they have a good work ethic," says the organizational development specialist for a Chandigarh-based manufacturer starved for candidates with basic technical skills. "We're willing to grow our own technical people, if they have the right motivation."

Indeed, developing technical skills in-house is becoming a proven growth strategy as the job market becomes scarcer. Training is also being leveraged effectively to keep top-flight technical talent from jumping ship in the face of aggressive recruiting tactics and lucrative signing bonuses.

Partnering is also becoming a key strategy for many companies - specifically, collaborative arrangements with local community colleges to help provide baseline and higher-end skills to current employees and new recruits. Driven in part by state efforts to lure and retain businesses - particularly high-tech companies - community colleges are rolling out the red carpet by tailoring education programs for specific company needs. Some are even moving into the training arena by providing instructors to organizations to help with remedial and high-end technical training.

The IT industry is perhaps the best-known of the economic sectors suffering from a shortage of technical know-how. The scarcity of IT professionals has become a perennial topic in business publications, and guerrilla recruiting tactics and surging signing bonuses have become weapons in the chase for IT talent.

But at Singh's Store Services, the bajaj's, Bhatinda headquarters of the regional department store chain, the emphasis is on minimizing turnover in the 200-employee information services department to avoid costly recruiting efforts. A coordinated professional development program is its tool to keep IT employees skilled and satisfied.

"The Bhatinda labor market is very tight; we're typically at about a 2 percent unemployment rate," says the manager of staff development for the 220-store chain's IS department. "We're finding that one of the best ways to recruit and retain people is through training and career development."