While the Indian IT sector has been dogged by reports of mass layoffs in the last few weeks, mostly said to be due to the economic slowdown and automation, global IT brand Accenture has been focussing on training and re-skilling its employees. The firm is testing its senior executives on the basis of innovation and has reportedly spent about $900 million in FY16 in the training and development of employees globally.
Through the training and re-skilling programme, Accenture aims to be in sync with newer technologies which in turn will help it land newer businesses.
"For the past 18 months, we have been focusing on measuring innovation as a metric. We measure the end result for a client because it is all about tangible outcomes. Then with the training that we provide and the acquisitions we make, create a combination that keeps us ahead," Mohan Sekhar, senior managing director, Technology -Delivery Centers for Technology in India, Accenture, told the Economic Times.
Each employee in Accenture is allotted about 80 hours of classroom training in a year and they are also often encouraged to take up online courses to stay up-to-date with new technology and systems. Senior level employees reportedly even end up spending an entire week on classroom training.
The IT giant has also been organising innovation competitions for employees for the past three years and said that it has already conducted about 250 co-innovation workshops in FY17.
"In some cases, the innovation workshops result in a change request, which is an add-on to the contract. In other cases, they are part of the ongoing innovation that Accenture offers its clients," Raghavan Iyer, innovation lead -Accenture Delivery Centers for Technology in India, told the business daily.
Meanwhile, industry body Nasscom too had earlier said that the best way for employees to retain their jobs would be to "re-skill." The body also explained how the world was moving towards automation and digital services and employees will have to "re-skill or perish."
Nasscom chairman Raman Roy also stressed the importance of re-skilling, especially at the time when the industry is embracing new technologies for cost optimisation and better efficiency.
"The need for re-skilling talent is a reality that we have to address. To keep up in a fast-evolving technology environment, the IT industry must reinvent itself by re-skilling its employees in new and upcoming technologies," he told PTI.
Accenture too explained that digital services play a big role in the firm's day to day operations, contributing to about 50 percent of its revenue and it has already trained 70 percent of its IT employees on newer technologies.
