Spark Leadership Incorporated

It was early 2000 when India experienced a tangible transit from a manufacturing to a service dominated nation. There was a gradual shift from Job hunting by individuals to mass recruitment by employers. This happened due to emergence of IT and ITES. Our manpower had an edge due to which we became a global outsource destination, the factors being largest English speaking nation primarily and low cost of operations too played an important role. The impact on country economics was so high which boosted financial sector as there was a scope of investments and savings beyond mere reducing the income tax liability. This growth followed by increased consumerism in the country thus retail sector along with food chain businesses mushroomed. In between overall growth one major industry which emerged higher and higher with each sector growing was telecom sector and aviation. Telecom sector grows with IT, ITES, Retail and Finance because all the sectors require mass human capital which requires higher person to person communication.

Training and development from HR industry point of view is only scratching the surface, we have yet to start digging the depth. This area is yet to be oganised, why I say that is most of the organizations we have trained have focused less on Training need analysis (TNA). One of the large organization I trained informed me that they want to conduct a workshop on Negotiation skills as a necessity of an ISO 9001 2000 audit. This is rather a good news if we start taking action in organizing this industry by educating the need of training on soft skills with defined objectives and training need analysis only conducted by a professional training consultancy who will develop the content and deliver the training, or at least validated by them if the analysis has been done by the organization or an institute internally. If we go back to the need to communicate globally and realize the China factor, we will for sure understand the need of Soft skills training to the people specifically Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills, Business Communication, Emotional quotient, Time Management and Multitasking, Stress Management, Leadership and Team Building, Talent Management. The scope of training roots up from Schools, Management Institutes, Professional degree Institutes, frontline manpower (educated or uneducated). There is a maximum scope of Training and skills enhancement for the young and frontline manpower which goes up to middle and managerial level people and yes, there is good scope of leadership training to the top management.

The above analysis guides us to why there is a sizeable requirement of manpower in India and what is the current and future scope of HR consulting Industry. Emergence of above sectors will clearly indicate huge requirement of mass human capital with special respect to young and frontline manpower. In some sectors like IT, ITES, Finance the human resource will be professionally qualified and sectors like retail, telecom and aviatiation may absorb less qualified manpower based on skills and attitudes our young generation acquires. The wave on one hand will create a demand of sizeable manpower requirement though on the other hand will increase the demand and responsibility of HR consulting industry. There is an importance in refocusing on the root cause of the growth and understand the negligence before we further define the scope and prospects of HR consulting. Our growth started, with special respect to human resource demand, with an emergence of IT and ITES and that we became an outsource destination. The primary reason is that we are the largest English speaking nation in the world. However we never focused on this issue earlier because we thought we will enjoy monopoly forever, somehow we neglected CHINA factor, they being a non-English speaking country.

We will do justice to articulate this subject once we realize the challenge ahead and responsibility of HR consulting Industry. The challenge from skill enhancement point of view is to develop skills in our Human resource, which confirm to the global thought process and attitudes and to develop Non-English speaking and rural manpower on personal grooming and development.

Training and development from HR industry point of view is only scratching the surface, we have yet to start digging the depth. This area is yet to be oganised, why I say that is most of the organizations we have trained have focused less on Training need analysis (TNA). One of the large organization I trained informed me that they want to conduct a workshop on Negotiation skills as a necessity of an ISO 9001 2000 audit. This is rather a good news if we start taking action in organizing this industry by educating the need of training on soft skills with defined objectives and training need analysis only conducted by a professional training consultancy who will develop the content and deliver the training, or at least validated by them if the analysis has been done by the organization or an institute internally. If we go back to the need to communicate globally and realize the China factor, we will for sure understand the need of Soft skills training to the people specifically Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills, Business Communication, Emotional quotient, Time Management and Multitasking, Stress Management, Leadership and Team Building, Talent Management. The scope of training roots up from Schools, Management Institutes, Professional degree Institutes, frontline manpower (educated or uneducated). There is a maximum scope of Training and skills enhancement for the young and frontline manpower which goes up to middle and managerial level people and yes, there is good scope of leadership training to the top management.

Need for training of development is so high which can be explained through a recent training program at two quite reputed MBA institutes on communication skills including cracking through Group discussions and personal interviews. Last year the students were rejected in masses at a group discussion stage itself, hence they conducted a specialized training program this year, led personally by me. MBA students lacked basic principles of communication and an ability to conduct themselves in group discussions. They were completely ignorant on the basic practical queries related to their subjects. We did their training and results amazed me too, on an average 60-70% of the students were placed in first three days of campus interviews with most reputed organizations. If the grass root who is qualified business school graduates needs training to extent that the vacuum is loud and clear, we can well imagine what the overall need is. We as consultants and corporate along with Institutions need to wakeup to the peoples call