By Prakash Singh
The economic impact and the consequent social impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic has among other things brought the need for capability building into sharper focus. While this is certainly a challenge that is experienced globally, the Indian version of this story has its own unique dimensions.
The pandemic hit us when we are on the road to building a $5 trillion economy (by 2025) with a significant emphasis on building the country�s steel sector along the way. Even before the COVID-19 crisis arrived, India had already emerged as the second-largest steel producer in the world by overtaking Japan in 2018 and is now second only to China. The National Steel Policy (NSP) of 2017 has laid out an ambitious target to increase India�s steel-producing capacity to 300 MT by 2030-31 (from around 140 MT today) and also double the per capita steel consumption from around 70 kgs to around 160 kgs over the same period. While several factors will come into play to meet the target set by the NSP, the key among them would be creating the right kind of human capital within the Indian steel sector.
At a basic level, steel making has always been and will continue to be a highly asset-intensive business. The inputs and process of making steel have not changed much over the years. However, what is changing and will continue to do so exponentially in the coming years will be the role of technology and its various applications within the steel sector. Automation, the use of drones, and the application of emerging technologies like IoT will play a vital role in maintaining a competitive advantage in the global market by constantly improving efficiencies. Creating the right kind of human capabilities to manage and use these technologies is, therefore, becoming an area of focus within the steel industry.
Tata Steel has taken up this challenge head-on by adopting a three-pronged ATR (Assessment Training Recruitment) approach to build the right kind of human capital for the emerging needs of the Indian steel industry.
Assessment
The first and crucial step is to identify the right training and development needs of the workforce and build capability to meet current and future business needs. Enterprise Capability Building System (ECBS) is a scientific and objective tool to assess the employees� competency gap so that the right training is designed and delivered to the bridge the gap and meet the organisation�s competency requirements.
Tata Steel has also created a Technical Assessment model that will try to benefit the students of colleges to know their shortcomings viz a viz industry requirements. This would benefit them to have a more focussed approach to overcome their gaps and become industry-ready.
Training
In 2019, Tata Steel launched Vendor Skill Development Initiative under JN Tata Vocational Training Institute (JNTVTI) to up-skill vendor employees in safety and industry-specific skills. JNTVTI, a Trust and a training institute by the same name, was set-up by Tata Steel Ltd. in November 2015 with the objective of �developing talented youth from the deprived community as a world-class skilled resource�. Since its launch, the number of technical courses offered under this programme has expanded from 3 to over 140 courses and between November 2018 and March 2020 more than 60,000 contract employees have been trained, evaluated and certified under three tiers of excellence — Platinum (?80%), Gold (?70 to <80), Silver (? 60 to <70).
Further, through the Shavak Nanavati Technical Institute that was established in 1921, Tata Steel is also providing a range of e-learning courses on our e-commerce website (www.capabilitydevelopment.org) that covers of all areas relevant to any process industry which are accessible to everyone in any part of the world. These courses are one-of-its-kind which benefits learners to understand the different aspects of industry-specific knowledge and get upskilled in their domain through self-paced learning.
Recruitment
As one of the oldest recruiters of skilled workforce in India, Tata Steel follows a very stringent recruitment process. We have been successfully placing meritorious candidates at various Tata Steel group of companies and within vendor companies through JN Tata Vocational Training Institute (JNTVTI). Tata Steel also collaborates with the Confederation of Indian Industry to set up an employment exchange (Model Career Centre) to further the placement prospects of deserving candidates.
With the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing, Tata Steel has also started offering Work from Home (WFH) unpaid and round-the-year internship to students who are interested to get insight and knowledge of working in a manufacturing industry. Streams from a wide range of educational streams including B. Tech, Diploma, BBA, BCA, MCA, LLB, etc. are eligible to apply for this opportunity.
The proactive and progressive steps taken by Tata Steel to build capable and technologically relevant human capital will not only benefit its own operations but also strengthen the Indian steel sector and the larger manufacturing ecosystem by truly becoming future-ready.
(The author is Chief Capability Development, Tata Steel.�The views expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.)
