Less hiring, more firing: Automation poses big threat in IT

Cognizant looking at sacking more than 6,000 employees this year. Company says standard practice but is this is an impact of automation?

As the appraisal season begins, ominous signs for employees at Cognizant have begun to emerge. The company may fire more than 6,000 employees this year, according a report in The Economic Times.

According to a Cognizant spokesperson, the move is part of company’s regular appraisal cycle and under performers is likely to be under the radar. Media reports also say that as many as 10,000 employees can lose their jobs.

Job cuts

If the sacking at Cognizant is worrisome then the hiring statistics in other IT companies will add to the stress. Companies are investing more in digitization and automation. For this, they are looking at trimming their costs. This in turn is affecting the hiring process. As per a Business Standard report, number of employees brought on board this year will be 40 percent less as against last year.

This year the hiring process was slow for IT majors TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, HCL Technologies and the number went down to 60,000 from 100,000 last year.

What Cognizant has to say?

It is a standard practice for information technology (IT) companies to cut their workforce during a rigorous appraisal process and underperformers or employees who have not taken efforts to reskill will have a tough road ahead. In this sector, it is the bottom one per cent of the workforce that has to take the bitter pill.

Is this a standard practice or is this an automation wave?

IT industry is entering the new phase of automation. This may be good for the company to cut costs but employees may be out of jobs as companies will eliminate redundant roles. About 75 percent of Cognizant's 2.6 lakh-strong workforce is based out of India. The company is focusing on automation and building new digital capabilities. It is also planning to invest in training and re-skilling its team, and in substantially expanding its local workforces in the US and other local markets around the world where it operates. During an earnings call, company’s chief, Francisco D ‘Souza said, “As agile development and the pervasive influence of technology increases, the value of co-location and a consultative approach also goes up.”

He had also said that Cognizant will leverage its scale to prove costs in 2017 and 2018 through cost-optimization of traditional offerings such as applications, infrastructure and process services.

Will machines replace jobs?

A research by human resources (HR) solutions firm, People Strong, has found that automation will eat up quarter of people’s jobs by 2021 in India. As per a 2017 World Employment and Social Outlook report, unemployment in India might go up from 17.7 million in 2016 to 17.8 million (in 2017) and 18 million a year later.

For India, the challenge is job creation than job cuts.

Source: Money Control India

10 Successful Tips to Build a Successful Career

1. Know your values

The place to start building career success is with yourself. First, zero in on your values. Values are the core principles that run your life. The more your career aligns with and honors your values, the deeper the sense of satisfaction you will derive from what you do.

2. Play to your strengths

Second, find your strengths. It is easier and a lot more fun to play to your strengths than to compensate for weaknesses. A great resource for identifying your strengths is Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath where you buy the book and then take an on-line assessment which generates a report of your top 5 strengths. Then see how you can start playing to YOUR strengths!

3. Live your passions

Some people are able to live their passions every day. For others, tapping into passions is more challenging. Passions are often buried by belief systems and judgments that convince you that what you love is not worthy of or capable of sustaining you in a career. If that is your situation, think back to those childhood passions and see what it would take to introduce more of those things into your life right now.

4. Use your favorite skill sets

What are you good at doing? A great resource is the 7 Success Stories exercise in Richard Nelson Bolles’ seminal work, What Color Is Your Parachute? Think of the times that you have been successful and then zero in on the specific steps that you took to get there. These will tell you your best skills. Now pick your favorite skills and see how you can apply them in your career.

5. Figure out how much money you need to make

For anyone entering the job market or thinking about a career switch, take a long hard look at your finances. Do a budget. Decide on what kind of lifestyle is really important to you. Then think about how much money you need to make to support yourself in that lifestyle.

6. Have a plan

Once you have answered all of the foregoing questions, do some research into different career scenarios that combine your values, strengths, passions and favorite skills sets AND provide you with the money that you need to make. Imagine yourself in those careers. What will you be doing all day? Whom will you be working with? What do you want to accomplish? Then go out and find out more about these areas. Make a long-range plan for your career search and set quarterly, monthly and weekly SMART goals.

7. Stay flexible

There are probably a number of different areas that you could see yourself working in. Experiment and see what you like best! Volunteer at a local non-profit. Join a committee. Take a class.

Do you need additional skills? Take a course or go for another degree.

Do you need another job or two before you are ready for your ideal job? That’s okay since you are moving in the right direction!

8. Network

Here’s the real secret of career building: the best jobs come up because someone who knows you thinks that you would be the right person for the job. So networking is a critical piece of career success. Yet many people are afraid to network, thinking that it is somehow impolite to ask others for help. Even worse, they way wonder why would anyone want to spend time with someone new to the field.

And here’s another insight: networking does not have to be scary. Think of networking as connecting with another person so that the two of you are in sync and are relevant to each other. Yes, you have something to contribute! People are always looking for talent and those big executives/stars were once beginners just like you.

9. Get support

Seek out people who understand your situation or are a positive influence. Join a support group or create your own with like-minded friends. Hire a coach. Form your own personal board of directors. This is not the time to be with naysayers!

10. Be good to yourself

Building a career can be tricky so be good to yourself. Create a nourishment menu of fun, free things to do that make you feel great. Keep a success journal documenting all the things that you do well. If negative self-talk is holding you back, come up with a mantra or affirmation that can remind you of yourself at your best. Make these practices a habit throughout your life!

6 Challenges Facing the Talent Search in 2017

1. Lack of Tech Professionals

OK, so whilst not all recruiters operate within the tech/IT industries, skills shortages in some shape or form continue to plague most sectors.

With an ever increasing demand for project specialists and developers, “a lack of qualified staff and increased competition for talented developers has long been the scourge of the industry”. As demand continues to grow, those with experience with VMware in particular are fast becoming veritable gold dust to recruiters in the technical space.

Elsewhere, the skills shortage continues to plague other sectors – within the construction industry house building has been slowed – a direct result of an ongoing lack of skilled professionals - and within the engineering sector, engineers and technicians remain in urgent demand.

For those in recruitment, the challenges are likely to continue throughout the year.

2. Matching Skillsets to Criteria

Even if recruiters find those with the skills they’re looking for, there’s no guarantee they’ll match what their clients are after…

76% of recruiters surveyed at the end of 2016 said locating candidates with skill sets which matched the criteria their clients were looking for was the biggest challenge they faced.

The decline in certain skill sets, coupled with “…the mismatch between the location of skills and jobs” has led to huge challenges for those within the recruitment sector. As roles in technical industries become more and more niche, and candidates often have to win the approval of several hiring managers, “some mismatch is inevitable”.

Inevitable it may be, but for recruiters, it’s certainly not desirable.

3. Super Contractors

Contract rates continue to increase for roles which demand challenging or hard to find technical stacks.

For example, contract rates in India may be increased by 3.4% year on year. This has led to the rise of “super contractors”.

With 84% of recruitment bosses reporting an increase in demand for temporary/contract roles, recruiters face an uphill battle in convincing clients to pay a little more for contract professionals. Whilst some may see it as a positive – allowing them to bring on top talent with less of a financial commitment – others may well resent the cost.

With contractors increasing in number, there might potentially be further challenges on the horizon when it comes to finding and placing permanent professionals.

4. Legislation Changes

As auto-enrolment comes into effect, recruitment companies will be faced with a greater strain on their admin team.

Adding further responsibilities to an already stretched aspect of recruitment is guaranteed to cause a headache.

Getting to grips with legislation and juggling new paperwork, training days and the inevitable queries auto-enrolment is apt to produce, this is one of the top hurdles recruiters face in 2017.

5. Appealing to Discerning Candidates

In 2017, job seekers (particularly those with the aforementioned sought after skills) can afford to be picky about who they deal with and where they work.

With the continued scepticism and often downright hostility directed at recruiters, reassuring candidates and proving themselves trustworthy is fast becoming a huge challenge for recruitment consultants. With 70% of agencies utilizing the same handful of job boards, 2017 is the year recruiters must go above and beyond, and prove themselves worthy of the candidates they chase.

Furthermore, as mobile becomes the dominant platform, recruitment agencies will need to embrace modern marketing techniques and focus on making their jobs and content mobile accessible. It’s no longer optional – your candidates need to be able to apply via mobile.

6. Slow Hiring Processes

Almost every recruiter can remember at least one incident when the delay in hiring processes has cost them a candidate.

With skilled candidates who match the criteria clients seek so rare, it’s frustrating when delayed feedback or painfully slow offer processes mean candidates go elsewhere. Whilst these processes may not be something directly in most recruitment agencies’ control, they may be able to minimize potential damage. Developing strong relationships with their clients and effectively emphasizing their candidates’ worth is an extremely worthwhile Endeavour in 2017.

As 2017 gets into full swing, there are bound to be new and unpredictable challenges for those within recruitment to face. What are the top challenges facing your agency this year?

 Sources cited: 

http://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/jobvite_UK_Social_Recruitment_Survey_2015.pdf

http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Rise-of-the-super-contractors-as-IT-skills-gap-widens

Leadership And Talent Challenges In Asia

We undergone for two Months of research across Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo) and interact with dozens of Human Resources and business leaders with the help of JMRB Technologies in India. It was a fascinating discussion and I want to share a few thoughts.

Acute Leadership Gaps:  Asian Leaders Behave Differently.

It’s easy to generalize about Asia (ie. the economies are growing rapidly, nationalities vary widely, distances are long) but in many organizations the challenges companies face are similar or identical to those in other countries. I met with banks, hospitality companies, a few government agencies, and a variety of insurance and financial services institutions.

In each case HR leaders are dealing with leadership issues. We did a workshop on high-impact leadership development in Hong Kong and most of the large organizations there are quite advanced in their thinking. Do competency models vary by country? Do we want to look for different leadership styles in different countries? Yes, people confirm that leaders must have tremendous cultural agility and awareness in Asia, but ultimately leadership is leadership.

As the figure above shows, there are differences in leadership styles by culture (here we tend to value the “rugged individual” style). So while core leadership capabilities are the same everywhere, people agreed that style matters and leaders have to adjust to the needs of the local culture. (This is often called “cultural agility.”)

One of the senior leaders reflected that their young leaders are the most culturally agile and that differences in leadership culture are getting lesser as young people enter the leadership ranks. And it is important to build leaders locally – expatriate leadership is difficult, so companies want to accelerate development of leaders from the region.

According to my View: there is a vast opening in India for all level of talents in India, but there is a lack of skills from candidate and the expectation from company is also so high, so we can't balance the equilibrium of the expectation can't fulfilled, so the fulfilment ratio is getting less & we are get into the challenges.

HCL Technologies net up 7.8% at Rs 2,070 crore

HCL Technologies, the fourth-largest IT company in India, on last month posted a 7.8% jump in net profit at Rs 2,070 crore for the December quarter, helped by growth in public services business and infrastructure services. The stellar performance of HCL comes when its peers TCS and Infosys failed in the market. Revenues for HCL were up 14.2% at Rs 11,814 crore in the third quarter over the year-ago period. This is in line with the market expectation.

"We continue our robust financial performance with a revenue growth of 3% q-o-q in constant currency terms... We expect our 2016-17 revenues to be in the middle of this range,” said HCL Technologies President and CEO C Vijaykumar. HCL Technologies third quarter results for FY17 beat street estimates with US dollar revenue growth much ahead of what the markets had estimated. In dollar terms, the top line was higher by 11.4% at $1.74 billion while profits grew 5.2% to $306 million. The company also maintained that growth for FY17 will be in the range of 10% to 12%.

The US dollar revenue of TCS grew 0.3% and Infosys US dollar revenues declined by 1.4%. In dollar terms, the top line was higher by 11.4% at $1.74 billion while profits grew 5.2% to $306 million. The company has announced a dividend of Rs 6 per share. The Noida-based firm has maintained its revenue growth outlook of 12-14% for 2016-17 (based on average exchange rates for 2016-17) in constant currency. HCL Technologies' total headcount stood at 1,11,092 at the end of December 2016, with a gross addition of 8,467 people. 

The attrition for IT services on LTM (last twelve months) basis stood at 17.9%. Commenting on the impact of new technologies like automation and artificial intelligence on future hiring, Vijaykumar said the headcount may grow only 5-6 per cent. "There is going to be some optimisation due to automation... Last 4 years, our revenues have grown at about 12 per cent CAGR, but headcount has grown only 6-7 per cent, which means it's non-linear. This year, we are growing at 12-14 per cent, but headcount may grow only 5-6 per cent," he said.

He maintained that hiring will be across categories, including laterals and freshers. HCL Technologies reported broad-based growth across all revenue segments with the Americas and Europe growing by 13.6 per cent and 17.6 per cent, respectively, year-on-year. For the quarter to December, HCL Technologies had cash and cash equivalents of Rs 2,214.5 crore. It signed nine transformational deals this quarter across service lines, industry verticals and geographies.

As per my observation about HCL, HCL should plan to grow up to the next level in technologies to upgrade their current tools using for internal purpose, there is a news from the market analyst, HCL still using an old tool for recruitment it should be  upgrade to speed up the process, there is a huge delay is happening in HCL for on boarding the candidates in HCL. Most of the candidates declined the offer due to delay in process of BGV & so on,To unleash the power in HCL with the right candidate is required to increase the percent rate from 7.8 % to minimum 9.5% in total business.