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Leader Talk: In Conversation with Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services
Leader Talk: In Conversation with Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services

December 16, 2022

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“Becoming a future-ready organization is crucial for thriving in the age of digital disruption. Building ready talent pipelines, accelerating learning through upskilling initiatives, cultivating an inclusive culture and leveraging technology to deliver positive employee experience needs to gain centre stage for businesses to achieve their goals.” – Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services

 

  1. Tell us about NLB Services journey and growth story.

At NLB Services, digital transformation and innovation have always been our core pillars. We started our journey in 2007 from a single office in the US and now have 15 offices across the globe. With a strong team of 8000+ employees, we are one of the fastest-growing digital transformational workforce solution organizations. Our core competencies include Digital Talent Management, Data Engineering & Analytics, Digital Transformation & Cloud Solutions, and Learning & Upskilling.

As India prepares to become the digital talent hub, we are focused on empowering organizations to build dynamic and future-ready workforce. Amid the rising skills gap across industries, we bring in our expertise coupled with cutting-edge technologies to hire, train and deploy talent. Our learning and upskilling solutions help businesses to make optimum use of their talent resources and prepare them for the future of work.

  1. Talent is a big challenge across sectors. What burning issues need to be addressed when sourcing digital talent?

Talent is definitely a big challenge across industries and sectors. As we know, the last two years have been difficult for all of us as the demand for digital talent went fiercer. And now, we find ourselves in a situation where talent demand outstrips supply. The problem becomes enormous when the available talent lacks efficient skills to close the opportunity. The skills gap has become one of the major pressing issues in today’s digital economy.

The best way to address this issue is by prioritizing the skills your organization is in need of. An ideal list of skills required will include both soft skills and technical skills that today’s talent must possess. It has been often seen that transferable skills, such as project management, adaptability, relationship building, and analytical thinking possess more weightage than hard skills. This will also involve companies to move out of role brackets when they look for talent. Another challenge that organizations often face is the lack of a solid talent pipeline, which mostly persuades them to turn to reactive hiring. This invariably leads to rushed hiring processes and poor decision-making. Curating ready talent pipelines can help organizations have consistent access to qualified streams of candidates and is an effective way to make faster and better hires.

  1. Retaining Employees and their Experience is becoming very important. Would be great to know what your organisation is doing on this front as good employee experience has become a central theme both for retaining and acquiring talent?

Employee experience has gained centre stage as retention rates become imperative for sustainable growth. Instead of focusing, however, on numbers, organizations must move to boosting the happiness quotient of their employees. Retention rates will follow.

Moreover, in this age of digitally disruptive technology, we are witnessing the rising importance of cloud computing, big data, AI & ML, and more. And while these technologies have played a great role in driving the economy, they surely have a hand in improving the candidates’ and employees’ experience.

The power of automation, for example, has indeed enhanced the entire process of screening candidates, which was a more difficult task than it is now. With the easy screening of the candidate, organizations can eliminate redundant interview rounds and quicken the pace of hiring a candidate. Additionally, automation has also proved its worth in feedback processes, enabling managers to evaluate their team’s performance seamlessly. Another important trend is the big data that enables an organization to make informed and wise hiring decisions.

  1. What is your view point on bridging skills gap in the current times of continuously evolving technologies? Any specific initiatives that you could highlight on this front.

As I mentioned earlier, the skills gap is definitely a topic of concern. What we need to understand here is that technology will keep evolving and the skills gap will never diminish wholly. But if organizations keep up with the current trends and plan regular upskilling programs, then this barrier can be avoided at a certain level.

With NLB’s digital skilling solutions, we are constantly redesigning ways to empower and prepare our workforce for future skill demands. We analyse the needs of our clients and design training projects that reflect those needs.

  1. Please share your experience on how technology has been a key enabler both on enhancing employee experience and bridging the skills gap.

Technology now affects every aspect of an employee’s journey, from the moment they apply for a job to the moment they exit, and every moment of their employee experience in between. Integrating technology within a company's framework is one of the best ways to improve employee experience and can also play a crucial role in closing the skills gaps. Employee experience is more important now than ever with huge competition among companies not only for market share but also for talent acquisition and retention. Technology can help provide employees with an engaging, seamless and positive experience from the first interaction, which helps to cement a successful relationship between employer and employee going forward.

Giving employees access to modern tools helps bridge the skills gap faster. If an employee keeps getting the chance to evolve and learn new skills, then the saturation level will not come in the early stages. With the power of technology, organizations must redesign their strategy to bridge the gap internally. In-house learning and skilling initiatives enable organizations to ensure that employees hone their skills for superior growth while bridging the skills gaps effectively.

  1. From a future lens, what are those key action areas you prioritise in becoming a digital-first and future-ready organisation?

Future readiness requires an organization to think about different aspects, including ROI, values generated, skilling, acquisition, etc. To thrive and attain digital transformation, let’s have a look at the areas that invite these aspects to their full potential.

  • Build a virtual attire: To become a future-ready organization, it’s imperative to give weightage to a virtual setting than a physical one. Organizations can determine where tech tools, such as AR/VR, are required to establish a digitally transformed workplace.
  • Map your strategy around automation: Automation not only eliminates manual discrepancies but also saves process redundancies while ensuring resource utilization at its best. By introducing AI/ML around business processes, organizations can wisely speed up their operations, future-proofing the business.
  • Encourage futuristic skills: Being proactive while tracking upcoming trends is one thing, and executing those is another. To become future-ready, organizations must organize upskilling and learning programs on a regular basis so that their workforce keeps on growing and learning.
  • Introduce diversity and inclusion: Besides social implications, diversity and inclusion have proven their worth over time by helping organizations perform at scale. The one logical reason here is when you put together people from different backgrounds, you welcome multiple ideas that eventually lead to innovation. Not to mention, this century is all about innovation and creativity.

 

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