I’ve been producing this podcast for five years, and I have to say that my guest in this episode is one of the most insightful people I’ve ever had on the show.
Digital disruption is affecting everyone in ways we couldn’t have even of imagined a few years ago. The companies who are thriving are the organizations that are taking bold strategic decisions and thinking several steps ahead of their competition.
My guest this week is Balaji Ganapathy. Balaji is Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and Head of Workforce Effectiveness at Tata Consultancy Services, a company with 450,000 employees. TCS has responded to our changing digital world by radically upskilling a vast percentage of their workforce and completely reinventing the way they do talent acquisition to make it more inclusive. They are also proactively nurturing communities of future talent as well as supporting education systems all over the world. All of this has been built on their understanding of the vital importance of purpose.
In the interview, we discuss:
- The skills modern business need to survive and thrive
- How TCS reskilled their existing teams by creating the right culture, tools, and systems
- Why technology is legacy, but people aren’t and why AI still needs human intelligence
- Why every organization needs to be a purpose-driven organization
- Content, Context and Connection
- Changing the talent acquisition model to be more open and inclusive
- Working with education systems to give students relevant skills
- The importance of building bridges between technology and people
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from TA Tech, the Association for Talent Acquisition Solutions. T8Tech conferences are always great to attend, but they’re taking things to the next level this year by teaming up with unleash. The joint TA Tech Unleash Mega Conference takes place in London on March 24 to March 26 and we’ll bring together thought leaders from both Europe and the US to explore key issues in talent acquisition. From avoiding bias in tech based recruitment products to exploring how automation will change the role of recruiters from how best to buy and implement technology to optimizing advertising, ROI and the candidate experience. The program will be loaded with one of a kind insights and tons of take home value. For more information, visit tatech.org events that’s tatech.org and click on the TA Tech Unleash London Conference tab.
Matt Alder [00:01:25]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 242 of the Recruiting Future podcast. I’ve been producing this podcast for five years and I have to say that my guest in this episode is one of the most insightful people that I’ve ever had on the show. Digital disruption is affecting everyone in ways we couldn’t have even imagined of a few years ago. The companies who are thriving are the organizations that are taking bold strategic decisions and thinking several steps ahead of their competition. My guest this week is Balaji Ganapathy. Balaji is Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and Head of Workforce Effectiveness at Tata Consultancy Services, a company with 450,000 employees. TCS has responded to our changing digital world by radically upskilling a vast percentage of their workforce and completely reinventing the way they do talent acquisition in order to make it more inclusive. They’re also proactively nurturing communities of future talent as well as supporting education systems all over the world. All of this has been built on their understanding of the vital importance of purpose. It’s an absolutely must listen interview that I know all of you are really going to enjoy. Hi Balaji and welcome to the podcast.
Balaji Ganapathy [00:02:56]:
Hi Matt, Pleasure to be here.
Matt Alder [00:02:58]:
My absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Balaji Ganapathy [00:03:03]:
Total I am Balaji Ganapathy. I am an executive leader in Tata Consultancy Services, which is one of the most valuable information technology companies in the world. I wear three different hats, one on a business side, other on the talent side, and the third one on the community side where I Lead a global community initiatives.
Matt Alder [00:03:29]:
Fantastic. So you’re someone who’s really extremely well placed to talk about the changes that we’re seeing in the workforce, the different type of skills that the companies are going to need sort of moving forward and the things they might do to get those skills into their business. Perhaps as a first question, could you maybe share your insights and experience around the type of skills that employers need within their business to have a successful workforce in 2020?
Balaji Ganapathy [00:04:02]:
That’s such a loaded question, isn’t it? I think a lot of employers would love to have a crystal ball and look into it and have the answers. But what’s happening in the world out there that’s influencing the nature of work and therefore the skills that are needed in the workplace is how I want to position this. Of course it’s an easy answer to give. In terms of the kind of skills, combination of left brain and right brain is what I think is really important in today’s world, not just in 2020, but beyond. But where that stems from is that digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of things, blockchain others, what they are doing is they are really disrupting the way in which society and consumers and businesses can adopt and bring value to their own value systems and their supply chains using those technologies. So what that is doing is it is helping not only companies but also consumers move from being product centric to being more purpose centric. Take for example healthcare. You no longer look at healthcare as a product or a service. What you’re looking for is personal wellness. Companies are being disrupted to move from providing curative experiences, which is after the fact, to shifting to personal wellness and well being and helping society be more healthy. Or take for example the automobile sector where a car used to be a thing that you owned as an asset and that has shifted from owning an asset to having an experience where you’re going from point A to point B and that’s all you’re using that particular vehicle for. So the shift in which companies are encountering how digital technologies can be used is leading to the nature of work changing. So the kind of skills that are needed. When you are a product centric organization, there will be a lot of stability, there will be specialization, you are looking for domain knowledge. But with the shift to a more purpose driven value, you have to understand the needs of the consumer and therefore the skills that are needed is not only domain skills, but also business skills and people skills like design, thinking and empathy and human centric design. So this is just an example of how the space is evolving based on what is needed and the demands from consumers and the market to what companies are doing to shift their thinking and their ecosystems and therefore the skills that are needed. So the top few skills, if you look at it, critical thinking and problem solving, are certainly up at top. But the topmost one, if you ask any HR leader, they would tell you is emotional intelligence, design thinking, human centric design, dealing with ambiguity. Right. Working in cross functional teams that are cross cultural in nature. So that’s the shift that’s happening.
Matt Alder [00:07:54]:
Absolutely. I mean that makes perfect sense. These are certainly challenges that I’m seeing the employers that I work having in terms of how they can make sure that they have, make sure they have the right skills in their workforce to deal with the continuous change that’s happening. Now, I know that you’ve been through a process in your own organisation of reskilling and looking at how your business can be fit for purpose. Tell us a little bit about what you did and how you did it.
Balaji Ganapathy [00:08:28]:
A fascinating journey because as all these disruptions were happening, being a technology organization that is helping our customers on a growth and transformation journey, we need to be ahead of this game. But our approach was that take three or four years ago when we first started building our capabilities and looking at this ecosystem, we made a quick determination that we are going to build versus buy. We are going to double down on what is our strength, which is the strength of our talent and our workforce. Once that was decided, then we looked at how we can create a culture where people understand what is going on and can participate in it, and quite importantly shape it, but also provide not only culture, but also tools and systems that can enable them to move from where they are today to a point in the future where they can continue to participate in the new opportunities that are emerging as a result of this transformation. So how did we do that from the culture perspective? One of the key messages we shared internally is that technology is legacy. People are not, people can learn, people can adapt. And putting the person at the center of this ecosystem and saying that artificial intelligence still needs human intelligence to direct it. So setting that learning culture and helping people understand that the disruptions that are happening are happening because of the adoption of digital technologies, but also because market trends are changing. Our way of making sense of this was a thought leadership framework called Business 4.0. And part of this framework deals with embracing risk and being agile as behaviors that need to be exhibited by organization and people to adapt and thrive. And that is what we applied internally and Then we articulated what is the nature of work that we expect to see in the immediate future and therefore, what are the shift in roles, what are the shift in skills? And we took on pilot projects and sort of identified new organizational designs, new agile workspaces, new the job job descriptions as well as skills that go along with it. And then most importantly, made a huge investment in anytime, anywhere, any place learning system that we custom built internally to enable people to gain the skill set they need. And what has happened as a result of this? In the last three years, out of the 450,000 employees that we have globally, we have enabled more than 315,000 people to gain digital technology skills that are certifiable. And what has happened as a result of that is today digital is a significant portion. More than a third of our business is digital as compared to earlier. So approaching it this way, providing the right kind of culture, the platform and also the content, has enabled us to grow our business while doubling down on what our strength is, which is our talent and our workforce.
Matt Alder [00:12:17]:
That sounds like an incredibly successful initiative as well as the kind of the upskilling part and giving that kind of framework and support to your existing employees. How did this change the way you approach talent acquisition, recruiting and sort of bringing new people into the business?
Balaji Ganapathy [00:12:35]:
It completely changed the model in which we approach talent and recruit talent, and especially at the middle and lower level. So using the same technologies that we are applying to businesses and helping them in a growth and transformation journey, we said, why don’t we apply the same problem set and the same set of technologies to the talent sector? And you know, India is a big market for us and we are one of the largest employers in the country. So when I look at globally, I want to just take India as a case study and share with you what we did. We already had an existing ecosystem where we were working with our entire talent supply chain. Academia, universities and other institutions, the labor market agencies, trade associations and so on and so forth, research and other government organizations. But what we did is we applied digital, we applied agile and came up with approach called national qualifier test for our entry level talent. So far, our supply chain was that we would accredit colleges across the country and then, you know, visit the campuses, interact with the students, have them apply and go through a selection process and then come on board into tcs. But we disrupted that model by providing every student from any institution who had the credentials, who had the basic understanding and the excitement to work in these opportunities to apply and go through a standardized assessment and then based on the results of those assessments, they can participate in a community of peers and mentors where they can interact with them, work with them, and then show how they are applying their skills to real world problems. And as a result of that, our entire entry level talent hiring, which we do about 25 to 30,000 a year in India, is now done through this model. And this is not just from inside out perspective, from outside in perspective. The ecosystem that we have built enabled us to work with the academia and other organizations to share with them what we are seeing, where trends are in terms of skills, in terms of jobs, in terms of nature of work, and that we continue to do on an ongoing basis and share and help inform what kind of content should students and the younger workforce be exposed to, what kind of context we can provide and how those skills and the nature of work is happening inside the world of work. And most importantly, provide connection points where our employees as mentors can interact with them, can share with them what they are doing, what exciting new stuff is happening within the company and give them a way to connect to that. So that’s an example of how we have disrupted ourselves by using what works best for us in terms of our customers and apply that to a talent ecosystem.
Matt Alder [00:16:12]:
Just to dig a little bit deeper into your last point about you can use the data you’re getting to support students and universities. Do you go further than that into future talent and sort of doing a thing at school level? Because obviously preparing people for, for future tech careers is a big topic. It’s something that educational systems around the world aren’t necessarily set up to do. What do you see your role in that?
Balaji Ganapathy [00:16:41]:
Look, I think every organization in today’s world has to be a purpose driven organization. And as organization in the technology space, where talent and digital is really the two things that come together to create value for us, we have a front row seat to what’s going on and it is our responsibility and obligation to work much deeper with the education system in countries around the world. And that’s what we are doing. Let me give you an example of what we are doing in the United States, for example, where the education system, especially the K12 system, is set up in such a way that the last time a new subject was introduced in school was almost about 100 years ago. Yet 65% of students who are entering school today are going to be in jobs and careers that have not been invented yet. They are going to invent it. They are going to be the creators. So how are we making Sense of what’s happening today and translating it to what students can really do to prepare themselves and lead the future. The same principles of content, context and connection is what we apply on the student and the education system of education system as well. And how we are doing that is we have developed two programs that are student facing and educator facing. One is called goit, which is 10 years old now. But it all started off with our volunteers and our employees interacting with students in their neighborhood, in their backyard, schools, in their backyard, and realizing that students had misconceptions or misperceptions in terms of what technology jobs meant. So demystifying that and making easy it easier for them to understand what is happening within the technology space, not just in the tech sector, but in every sector, is the mission we took upon ourselves. Today that program is in 77 cities across North America and has engaged over 26,000 students. And what do we do? We don’t teach, just coding, that’s easy to learn as a skill. But what we are teaching is how to think, how to innovate using digital, starting with empathy. So they identify problems that they see around themselves in the community and learn the whole process of design thinking, human centered design, the basic principles of that learn agile in terms of rapid prototyping and how it works. So they develop grit and resilience as they go through that iterative process and then finally come up with a product idea or innovation idea of how the problem they identify can be solved. So developing entrepreneurial skills, all of these are what is going to put them up and set them up for success in the future. Because 10 years from now, 15 years from now, I don’t know what exactly will be the technical skills that will be needed, but I know that the cognitive skills that are needed, the communication skills that are needed are going to be of this nature, right where they will tell the AI, they will tell algorithms, they will tell technology what needs to be done rather than be controlled by the outcomes of what technology produces. So that has been widely successful and we work with schools, we work with nonprofit organizations and states and cities to implement this and provide them both content and context and connections. Our mentors, our employees mentor on the field do this. It’s a very immersive, hands on experiential learning opportunity for students. So that’s one example I want to share. I also quickly want to touch upon another one because while this can happen and happen in scale, what happens within the school system is also as important as what happens as, you know, immersion learning or out of school experiences. And so two years ago, we started a program called Ignite My Future in School. And the premise of the program is that educators and teachers are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution. It is our responsibility to equip them with the resources and the confidence and the kind of empowerment that they are able to prepare young people for the future, that they are going to design and innovate. So what we have used is computational thinking as a foundational skill. You may be familiar with computational thinking, but it’s very surprising when you talk to youngsters, when you talk to educators, that this is not something they’ve been familiar with. But yet the foundation of computer science, the foundation of AI, is through computational thinking, which is basically decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, modeling. These are all things that you and I may be knowingly or unknowingly using in daily life. Calculating how much time it takes for us to go from home to the airport to catch a flight, or how much we’ll be stuck in traffic or packing a bag for a trip. I mean, there are so many things that we do intuitively, yet if you look at the skills that you are gaining, we don’t have a name to call it. And computational thinking is a foundational skill for the 21st century. So through this program, what we have done is to provide educators and school systems across the US access to free resources that are standards aligned but transdisciplinary, so that kids are not just learning in computer science classes, but every subject can be taught and learned from the lens of computational thinking. So and this program, again, we’re very grateful for the tremendous success that it has had. Our vision was to reach 20,000 educators and 1 million students in a five year period. And in two years, we’ve reached about 10,000 educators and 600,000 students in all 50 states and about 120, 173 school districts across the U.S. so I wanted to share these two stories and these two examples as ways in which industry can abstract our knowledge of what is happening and work along with the school systems and the education system and others to translate that to a way in which students, educators, parents and policymakers can understand and make sense of it.
Matt Alder [00:23:56]:
Final question, what’s next? What does the future look like? What’s your focus going to be over the sort of coming two to three years?
Balaji Ganapathy [00:24:03]:
I think one of the things that weighs very heavily on my mind is that some of the problems that we are seeing as emerging in the world today is from systemic inequalities that are existing, whether it is from an economic, social or gender perspective. So what is next is to figure out ways to solve this in a way that is cross sector in nature and efforts that can help bridge build bridges between technology and people is something that we badly need all around the world. The polarization that we see around us. I believe that that can be countered if we learn to understand the model of how work looks like in the 21st century in fourth industrial revolution world. I think it is a responsibility of governments, yes, but the pace at which things are changing, I think it is really important for industry to work along with governments to help share learnings and trends and what’s going on and very actively participate in addressing some of the inequities that exist in society today. And I think most organizations, if not all, will have this on top of the agenda in the next year to two years. As I said earlier, I believe that purpose is the new digital because digital needs direction and purpose provides that direction. So I’m really very optimistic and hopeful for that because I think the younger workforce and those who are currently employed, this will sort of provide them the opportunity to connect to their purpose while they are doing work for any organization that they are working with. Right. Being able to relate to the purpose of that organization, but also contribute to countering the growing inequalities that exist and turning the tide towards a positive change.
Matt Alder [00:26:24]:
Balaji, thank you very much for talking to me.
Balaji Ganapathy [00:26:26]:
It’s been a pleasure, man.
Matt Alder [00:26:28]:
My thanks to Balaji Ganapathy. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow us on Instagram. You can find the show by searching for recruiting future. If you’re a Spotify or Pandora user, you can also find the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com. on that site, you can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
