NEED FOR RE-SKILLTRAINING TOWARDS MAKE IN INDIA INITIATIVE

Anita Singh

Institute of Management Studies Ghaziabad, India

E-mail: anitasinghims@yahoo.com

Rinku Sanjeev

Institute of Management Studies Ghaziabad, India

E-mail: drrinkusanjeev@gmail.com

Submission: 09/04/2016

Accept: 09/06/2016

ABSTRACT

With rapid change in global environment and technology, Indian corporate and industry is facing a big hurdle to fill existing jobs due to shortage of skilled manpower. To fill this gap the government has taken ‘Make in India’ initiative for skilling and re skilling manpower. Most of the Indian IT companies have shifted their focus from hiring to training and re skilling their employees at every level to match the needs of their client and make the organization cost effective. Training brings about attitudinal changes, improves skill, and there by improves job performance.

The study attempts to understand attitude of employees towards imparting Re Skilling Training program, whether employees feels that re-skilling training is necessary or they are burdened by it. The basic focus of this paper is to identify the factor that influence employees attitude towards re-skilling. A survey is conducted to attain the objectives of the research. Respondents are the employees working in IT sector. Finding of the study includes that employees agree that re-killing is important for job growth and it also helps them in learning new technology and skills .They are of the opinion that re skilling provides them with better growth opportunities and enhances overall performance of the organization.

Keywords: Employee Attitude, Employee motivation, re-skilling, Training, factor, IT Company, India

1. INTRODUCTION

Growth of any economy depends on having a competent workforce. And competence of the workforce is directly linked with the skills. Though India is one of the youngest countries with high working population in terms of demographics but this alone is not enough. For the growth of the country workforce has to be made productive by providing them with the right set of skills.

Indian Government ‘Make in India’ initiative to make India a ‘human resource capital’ of the world, has launched number of schemes to train 40 crore people in various skills by 2022 as part of “war against poverty.” Government taking into consideration the vast changes in global environment and technology are putting emphasis on having futuristic vision and preparing plans to face this challenge for the next 10 years and for this they are advocating the need for regular interaction between industry and technology experts, as the objective of the skill development initiative is not only to meet the domestic demands but also to cater with international markets.

The effectiveness of skill initiative depends on providing better employment opportunities to the trainees. The skill initiative in India is largely government driven exercise, but observing the rate of failure of number of the projects the only way NSDC can cross its milestones is to involve private companies and institutions, which have means and infrastructure, in connecting with industry, mapping demand and linking trainees with jobs.

In a competitive global economy trained manpower is an asset for employers. Today Indian IT Companies are performance driven and they are involved in building skills for better performance. Earlier, IT companies used to largely focus on hiring, today the focus for most of the companies, has shifted to training and re-skilling to match client requirements in a highly changing and dynamic environment. Re-skilling of employees helps organizations to focus on the future rather than the past. Appropriate re-skilling of the employees, ensures a strong match between company needs, employee skills, and long-term goals.

Employees training tries to improve skills so that employee is better equipped to do his present job or to prepare him for a higher position with increased responsibilities. The study attempts to understand attitude of employees towards imparting Re Skilling Training program and to identify the factor that influence employees attitude towards re-skilling.

2. Literature Review

Nowadays in organizations, work is characterized by rapid changes, an increasingly diverse workforce and competitive business environments (CASCIO, 1998; GOLDSTEIN, 2002; SMITH et. al 1997). Employee’s development, and more specifically training, can help individuals and organizations work more effectively adapt to the changing environment and achieve individual and organizational goals (KINDSLEY, 1998)

Training is defined as “the planned and systematic modification of behavior through learning events, programmes and instruction which enable individuals to achieve the levels of knowledge, skill and competence needed to carry out their work effectively”, whereas, development as “the growth or realization of a person’s ability and potential through provision of learning and educational experiences”(ARMSTRONG, 2003).

2.1. Employee Motivation and Training

Employees’ motivation towards training programmes is an important factor in the effectiveness of such programmes, (TSAI; TAI, 2003) , whereas, (KAR, 2012) is of the opinion that job utility and career utility greatly affects employees’ motivation towards training and development programmes. Well-motivated employees are more likely to have a positive perception of the training environment in their organizations. This has been shown to lead to greater participation in training activities, (KHAN; KHAN; KHAN, 2011).

Empirical research also indicates that those motivated to learn tend to apply learnt skills more effectively in their work (CANNON-BOWERS; SALAS; TANNENBAUM; MATHIEU, 1993). According to Facteau, Dobbins, Russell, Ladd and Kudisch (1995), the benefits resulting generate positive feelings towards the organization, and enhance affective commitment.

Elangovan And Karakowsky (1999) are of the opinion that employees will be motivated to learn if they perceive the importance of training with respect to their expectation in the form of improved performance, reward, bonuses and promotion.. Research suggests that employees who perceive training beneficial will be more committed to organization (AL-EMADI; MARQUARDT, 2007).

And Brinkerhoff (2006) views that employees who perceive training effective means of satisfying their lower level needs together with high level needs such as self esteem or self actualization will be more effective performers..

2.2. Relevance of skill Training

Training is important because it sets the tone for how the employee views the company, it helps ease the transition during the new hire process, and it builds a foundation for employees. Research has shown that it takes nearly ninety days to get a clear picture of how an employee will succeed in their job. However, the first thirty days of employment are the most important in developing the employee.

Research has also shown that new hires will decide within the first two weeks whether their new workplace is what they want or they decide to stay on until they find a better job (ANDERSON, 2007). A comprehensive training and development program helps in deliberating on the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to achieve organizational goals and also to create competitive advantage (PETERAF 1993).

2.3. Re skilling IT Professionals

According to Allison (2002) “unlike some professions that require long years of study, in IT many skills can be developed relatively quickly—over a period of weeks or months instead of years. Unfortunately, not a lot of research exists about how long it takes to develop an employable level of proficiency, so IT managers need to rely on their own experience (or anecdotal evidence) in other organizations.”

Allison (2002) is of the opinion that The managers who are involved in planning ,must consider the issues like assessment of which skills the organization needs , assessment of the individual’s current skills (technical and nontechnical), the gap relative to the desired state, Who will be doing the training, coaching, or mentoring , How much re skilling is formal classroom training as opposed to other techniques such as on-line training, self-study, and so forth , How the individual undergoing training will gain the necessary practical experience in a timely way etc.

3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

From foregoing literature review it is observed that there is no much research conducted in the area of re-skilling of the employees in IT Companies .Few research is there suggesting the importance of re skilling from employers perspective but research contribution towards gauging the employee perspective towards re skill training is not so prominent.

It is very important for the managers to understand the attitude of employees towards re skilling, what kind of re-skill training is required; what are the factors which influence their attitude. This will help the organization to make their program cost effective and productive. The purpose of the present study is to identify the factors affecting the employee’s attitude in an organization towards skill training.

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

An empirical study is conducted in IT Companies located in Delhi and NCR. The research is Exploratory in nature. A structured questionnaire was administered to the executives in the organization. The instrument was administered to 10 or more employee in an organization drawn from different functional areas. The employees in these organizations were given a list of 18 statements that measured their extent of agreement towards the variable. The items were measured on a 5 point Likert scale with 1 representing strongly agree and 5 representing strongly disagree. These statements were selected after pilot testing in two organizations and modified accordingly.

5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

After data editing a total of 100 questionnaires was included for further analysis

Table 1: Demographic Profile of the Respondents

Variables	Description	Frequency
Gender	Male Female	72 28
Age	20- 30 31-40 41-50	76 21 3
Designation	Consultants Analyst Project heads Developers Others	8 55 9 21 9

From the above table it is observed that Out of 100 respondents (employees in IT Sector) 72 are males and 28 are Females maximum people working in this sector are in between the age of 20-30 and between 31-40 age there are 21 respondents, 3 employees in between the age of 41-50 and out of 100 respondent 6 employees were consultant including sr. consultant as well associate Consultant, 55 employees are analyst including sr. analyst, quality analyst, 9 are project lead, 21 are developer and 9 are other designation in IT companies.

5.1. Factor Analysis

For further analysis an exploratory factor analysis was carried out to identify the important factors affecting the employee’s attitude in an organization. For checking data reliability Cronbach alpha having 0. .575 values for 18 statements shows data is reliable (refer table 2).

The correlations matrices computed & examined reveal that there is enough correlation to go ahead with factor analysis. To test the sample adequacy, KMO Measure of sampling adequacy is computed, which is found to be 0.585 which indicates that sample is good enough for sampling.

The overall significance tested with Bartlett Test of Sphericity (approx. Chi-square = 892.952 significant d = 0.00) support the validity of the factor analysis of data set (refer table 3). Principal component Analysis with Varimax rotation is employed for extracting factors. Those factors having Eigen values greater than one are considered significant, all the other factors are considered insignificant & disregarded.

The initial extraction using principal component analysis revealed 6 factors; having Eigen values exceeding one. The index for the solution accounts for 73.852 of the total variation which is a good extraction as it is able to economize on the number of choice factors (from 18 it was reduced to 6 underlying factors) while it lost only 26.413 information content for choice variables( refer table 4,5 and 6)

Table.2: Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha	N of Items
.575	18

Table 3: KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		.585
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	892.952
	Df	153
	Sig.	.000

Table 4: Total Variance Explained

Component	Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings			Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings
	Total	% of Variance	Cumulative %	Total	% of Variance	Cumulative %
1	3.816	21.200	21.200	3.268	18.157	18.157
2	3.173	17.630	38.830	2.785	15.472	33.630
3	1.988	11.045	49.876	2.053	11.408	45.038
4	1.825	10.140	60.016	1.947	10.816	55.853
5	1.420	7.891	67.907	1.767	9.818	65.671
6	1.021	5.675	73.582	1.424	7.911	73.582

Table 5:Rotated Component Matrix

	Component
	1	2	3	4	5	6
V8	.004	.382	.775	.051	.268	-.176
V9	-.182	.821	-.003	.239	-.093	.195
V10	.787	.217	.043	.037	-.222	-.247
V11	-.537	.026	-.010	.521	-.352	.406
V12	.004	-.036	-.127	.051	.031	.864
V13	-.014	.297	-.471	.510	.221	.258
V14	-.261	-.549	.072	.591	-.167	-.100
V15	.715	.092	.220	-.214	.233	.321
V16	-.182	.647	-.545	.032	.161	.056
V17	.004	.105	.047	.790	.187	-.034
V18	.232	.177	.036	.493	-.490	.223
V19	.094	.021	.099	.017	.683	.264
V20	.162	.752	.144	-.030	.064	-.198
V21	.791	-.215	.228	-.188	-.130	.053
V22	.260	-.176	.850	.056	.140	.021
V23	.822	.025	.037	.135	.028	.026
V24	.500	.614	-.203	.108	.207	-.122
V25	-.077	.192	.108	.134	.727	-.149

Table 8: Factor Matrix

Factor Name	Mean	Specific attribute	Factor Loading
Need oriented	3.81	V10 Re Skill training is provided as per requirement V15 Got promotion due to Re Skill trainings V21 Classroom settings are better to learn for skill training V23 Increases commitment to job	.787 .715 .791 .822
Appropriate re skill training	3.84	V9 Training provided to all levels V16 Supervisor ask for inputs in re skill training V20 learns best when apply skills V24 priority given to appropriate re skill training	.821 .647 .752 .500
Soft skill training	3.78	V8 Effective communication, Team building and coaching should be included in skill training V22 More re skill trainings in different areas should be offered	.775 .850
Value Addition	4.096	V11 Training important for job growth V13 Sessions are meaningful V14 I feel valued at job after getting skill V17 Mentors are important V18Re Skill training influences achievements	.521 .510 .591 .790 .493
Updated knowledge	4.10	V19 Employee get training about new technology V23 On the job training is an effective tool	.683 .727
Advanced Growth	4.32	V12 Re Skill Training is important for potential advancement	.864

5.2. Factor Discussion

Factor 1.Need oriented

The most important factor is need oriented, having cumulative variance of 18. 57 and with mean score of 3.81 shows that on an average employees in IT sector agree re-kill training provided to them should be according to their needs. Their attitude towards the training is positive, they agree that they adequate re-skilling helps in getting promotion ,and further they are of the opinion that classroom settings are better to learn .According to employees a need oriented training increases commitment towards job.

Factor 2: Appropriate re-skill training

Factor 2 having cumulative variance of 33.630 has average score of 3.84 i.e. 4, employees are of the opinion that training should be provided at all levels, employees should be asked for their inputs while designing the program. Employees are of the opinion that best learning is there when appropriate re- skill training is given and which is easy to apply in jobs.

Factor 3: Soft skill training

Factor 3, having cumulative variance of 45.058 has average score of 3.78 i.e.4, employee agree and expect that good training programs should besides technical skill training should include modules on team building, effective communication and coaching. Further they are of the opinion that frequency of training should be increased.

Factor 4: Value Addition

Factor 4, having cumulative variance of 55.853 and average score of 4.09, depicts that employees in IT company are of the opinion that training is important for job growth .They are of the opinion that mentors play very important role in providing training and re-skilling further if the training sessions are meaningful , it helps in advancement of career better job opportunities.

Factor 5: Updated knowledge

This Factor has average score of 4.10 with 9.818 % variance shows s that employees agree that training of new technology and on the job training is effective tool for learning.

Factor 6: Advanced Growth

The last factor with average score of 4.32 and variance of 7.911 % demonstrates that employees are of the opinion that re-skilling training is very important and for potential advancement.

6. CONCLUSIONS

From the above study it can be concluded that it’s very important to provide the right kind of skills to employees for better employment opportunities. The companies must put more emphasis on re-skilling than hiring IT professionals for saving their time and money .The research suggests that employee attitude towards re-skilling is influenced by factor like Need oriented, Appropriate re skill training ,Soft skill training ,Value Addition, Updated knowledge and Advanced Growth. Further the managers involved in the planning of skill training and re-skilling program must consider the above factors.

7. STUDY LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

The finding of the study must be considered within certain limitations. A common method bias may be present since all the data were self supported .The sample size is too small to reflect the opinion of the whole organization.

In the future this study could be conducted by increasing the sample size which would provide more comprehensive and conclusive results and help the organization in providing effective re-skilling training to their employees.

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