Upskilling amidst the lockdown

Techies are boning up on new technologies to deal with future challenges in the job market, reports Sai Ishwar

Last year, Shrikant, a Java developer at HCL Technologies, felt that the programming language had limited future potential and enrolled in a Python and Machine Learning (ML) course online. After completing the course, the 29year-old landed a data scientist’s job at Accenture. “After basic ML, I want to dive into deep learning. I’ve also been learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) amidst the lockdown.”

Shrikant isn’t the only one updating his skillset by enrolling in deep-tech online courses during the lockdown. With experts forecasting a tight job market in the Covid-19 world, midcareer techies are signing up for professional certification e-learning courses to pick up additional skills. Fears of a looming recession and the lack of social security add to the uncertainties. In fact, a lot of tech companies are encouraging their employees to bone up on new skills at this time.

According to a Nasscom report, about 40 per cent of India’s total workforce needs to be reskilled by 2022 to cope with emerging technologies such as AI, Internet of Things (IOT), ML and blockchain. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report 2018, too, says that more than half of India’s workforce will need to be reskilled by 2022 to meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“People in the 30-45 years age group who work in software firms have lost their ability to code over a period of time,” says Kris Lakshmikant, founder and CEO, Headhunters India, a Bengalurubased executive search firm. “Besides, post Covid-19, only 50 per cent of the workforce will attend office, at least in the short term, so the cloud and automation spaces are seeing additional demand,” he adds.

The price of the online programmes start from ~15,000 and can be as high as ~3 lakh, where a post-graduation certificate is offered in partnership with reputed foreign institutes such as Purdue University or the University of Chicago. The programmes are broken down into modules and require 5-10 hours of work every week. Typically, the total course duration is 10-12 months. And in some cases, the cost of the programme is reimbursed by the employer.

Intellipaat, a Bengaluru-based edtech firm, has seen a 40 per cent uptick in the number of those who have rejoined courses in recent weeks after having dropped out earlier owing to time constraints. It has also witnessed a 30 per cent increase in enquires for course enrolments. The most sought-after courses are data science, cloud, AI and ML.

“Professionals want to upskill as everyone is anticipating a recession and a rise in unemployment,” says Diwakar Chittora, co-founder and CEO, Intellipaat, pointing to the fact that joblessness in the US is hitting record high levels. “So people are using the time saved in commuting and making themselves better-equipped.” Adds Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO of ed-tech firm Simplilearn, which has also seen a 30 per cent surge in their enrolment rate and has made around 13 basic courses free to use on its Andriod app: “This is the first time that people who started

working after the 2008 financial crisis have faced a major setback. They now realise that one may not have a job even if one is qualified.”

Indian ed-tech firms believe that steps like employing trainers with professional experience to conducting live online classes and the “Indian touch” give them an advantage over the massive open online courses (MOOCS) that largely employ academics and offer pre-recorded classes.

Larger global players such as Udemy and Coursera, too, have courses focused on new-age technologies. Coursera, in fact, has surpassed its new

registration numbers of 1.4 million last year. “The demand for AI and automation skills will rise sharply, as companies look at how to apply AI and automation technologies across all areas of the business to stay prepared for future contingencies,” says Raghav Gupta, Managing Director, India & APAC, Coursera.

At a recent webinar on “Embracing Uncertainties” organised by Upgrad, an online higher education company, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and former chairman of Infosys, said, “The field of information technology, AI, and application of digital techniques is going to grow dramatically in the long run. Therefore, one (a working professional) should be ready for this challenge and get into a continuous learning mode.”

According to Infosys’ Talent Radar Report 2019, the five technical skills that are in huge demand today are analytics (needed in 67 per cent of digital initiative projects), user experience (67 per cent), automation (61 per cent), IT architecture (59 per cent) and artificial intelligence (58 per cent).

“There is not just a talent war — it’s a famine. To succeed, companies must hire, develop, and retain talent better than their competition. As enterprises progress in their digital journeys, the winners will be those who utilise multiple hiring sources and reskill workers in a culture of lifelong learning,” says Pravin Rao, chief operating officer, Infosys, in the report.

Intellipaat has partnered with Indian IT firms as well as multinational firms such as Societe Generale and Bosch to train their employees in an online classroom environment. Chittora of Intellipaat says that even though enterprises are expected to drive cost-optimisation measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic, most companies consider spends on employee skill enhancement as a right investment. “The margins for niche skills projects like AI, ML, data science are high for IT firms and the cost of training is not even 1 per cent of their total project cost, but the returns on investments are way higher,” adds Chittora.

IT behemoths such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro have already accelerated their cost optimisation measures as they foresee the impact of Covid-19 on revenue in the forthcoming quarters. TCS’ chief financial officer V Ramakrishnan said the firm is looking at cost optimisation “as much as possible” across the board.

In the past, companies have had a hybrid training environment where they had both physical sessions as well as online modules. Simplilearn foresees the training modules tilting in favour of online platforms at least in the short term.

“Most companies are anyway transitioning to new-age technologies and Covid-19 has accelerated the digital adoption,” says Kumar of Simplilearn, adding that brick-and-mortar stores have been the most affected by the current situation while e-commerce has done relatively better. “And that's where digital marketing and Big Data skills come into play.”

Homegrown ed-tech firms believe that steps like employing trainers with professional experience to conducting live online classes and the “Indian touch” give them an advantage over the massive open online courses