India Inc readying the next-gen workforce with in-house universities

TechVarsity, the technical university of Tata Technologies caters to ‘Technical Competency Development’ to meet the growing business demands across automotive, aerospace and industry heavy machinery verticals. (Illustration by Suneesh Kalarickal)

Many companies are setting up internal learning and development (L&D) institutes to keep up with the constantly evolving business landscape and talent disruptions and prepare employees for lateral advancements within the organisation.

By providing comprehensive training programmes, workshops, and resources, these institutes serve as dedicated platforms aimed at upskilling employees. Such initiatives empower employees to adapt to emerging technologies and industry trends and foster a culture of continuous learning and growth in the organisation.

Infosys Global Education Centre at Mysuru is currently one of the largest corporate training facilities in the world. It is home to Infosys’ Foundation Program for graduates, internship programmes for students, and houses the Infosys Leadership Institute, which prepares C-suite leaders from within the organisation to take charge.

Employees at the IT major are provided with a curated learning path based on a skill-role framework that allows them to move into new roles, Thirumala Arohi, SVP and Head - Education, Training and Assessment at Infosys, told Moneycontrol. The incentive for employees is these reskilling and upskilling initiatives provide them with digital and core skill tags making them eligible for lateral career moves internally.

At Goldman Sachs, a multinational investment bank and financial services company, Goldman Sachs University, or GSU, is the in-house training institute that offers targeted programs, through both classroom sessions and an expansive digital library of over 8,000 modules, covering a wide variety of topics across the latest technologies, leadership capabilities, and on innovation mindset.

Last year, GSU hosted over 300 classroom sessions in India.

Reducing billability

TechVarsity, the technical university of Tata Technologies caters to ‘Technical Competency Development’ to meet the growing business demands across automotive, aerospace and industry heavy machinery verticals.

The varsity trained 3,650 employees in FY23, up from 2,198 in FY22. The ‘Fresher Training Program’ that focuses on ER&D (Engineering and Research and Development) and DES (Digital Enterprise Solutions) has been “successful” in reducing the billability days, claims Tracy Austina Zacreas, Global Head of Technical Learning and Development at Tata Technologies.

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Billable hours/days are the amounts of an employee's work time that can be charged to a client.

Apart from vanilla skills, Tata Technologies’ focus is on enabling its employees to niche skills such as Embedded Programming, AUTOSAR, Cybersecurity, Functional Safety, Data Analytics, Windchill (Product Life Cycle Management) PLM, Teamcenter, SAP, RCA, DVA, among others.

“TechVarsity also manages the learning management system, or LMS, of one of the key customers and is responsible for technically enabling the employees to work on the project,” Zacreas said.

Niche skills in focus

At Infosys Global Education Centre, the flagship Foundation Program enables fresh graduates to become corporate professionals in 16-19 weeks. Currently, more than 30,000 fresh graduates are trained every year.

The program curriculum comprises 46 variants of technology streams including Cloud-native development, Data science, Low code No Code, End User Computing, MS Power platforms, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things and blockchain, in addition to the traditional streams like Mainframe, Open Systems, Java, and Microsoft tools.

Behavioural competencies and niche skills are also part of the training that has been designed to prepare its employees for dynamic business requirements.

“Meanwhile, Lex, our versatile digital learning platform helps our employees to keep abreast with the latest technologies by learning at times that are most convenient for them, from anywhere in addition to the scheduled instructor-led training programs,” Arohi said.

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Goldman Sachs University’s focus to drive upskilling on the latest technologies is supported through an annual engineering learning conference, in addition to global programs that were initiated from India including Data School and Python Training.

The top three topics that saw maximum learning interest in India last year were Technical competencies (AI/ML, Cloud, and software development), Data Analytics and Modeling, and Client Service.

“Our L&D focus areas in India this year are strengthening a diverse leadership bench and upskilling talent on technical competencies such as Python, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning,” said Deepika Banerjee, Head of Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs Services in India.

While L&D experts feel companies are on the progressive path to internalise and personalise their training strategy, it's tough for them to gauge the targeted impact in the long term.

“Given the pace of technology change, companies will want to have the ability to flex their muscle and to enable that, they need to take advantage of the best content in the world,” said Shravan Goli, Chief Operating Officer at learning platform Coursera.

Various upskilling platforms including Coursera are now offering personalised content relevant to organisations’ context, he added.