INDUSTRY || INSTITUTES : need for a quid-pro-quo approach for mutual benefit !

In over 40 years of my industrial experience, I have not seen any major change in the ways the Industry and educational Institutes collaborated with each other.

Progressive companies, leading institutes, innovative people at the helm, have of course made efforts towards change for improved & sustained engagement; engagements that benefit either party's strategic goals. However, what we find is that, the Indian Industry is still searching for people who meet the daunting demands at their work places - let alone people who are capable, competent, innovative, self driven, plus all other enviable soft skills. On the other hand, we also see almost all institutes, IITs & IIMs included, churn out year-after-year, graduates, a significant number of whom do not get employed in the industry.

When I say Industry, it includes Businesses, public sector administration departments and many other organisations that need qualified and skilled people to conduct their work.

Various industry reports indicate that the maximum employability rate among Indian engineering graduates is about 65%, However, it also mentions that only about 45% of those who are employed meet industry standard. Another source indicates that only about 10% of the 1.5 million engineering graduates this year will get employment. Few years ago, Mr. N R Narayana Murthy famously said that majority of the Indian graduates are unemployable. He discussed a lot on the general curriculum & quality of education. He talked about the societal culture that appreciates & prioritises rote learning as opposed to emphasis on problem-solving.

Clearly, the educational institutes are going through their procedures year after year and make efforts to meet their targets; in other words, many institutes are literally living upto the remark that they are just 'academic' in nature with respect to conduct of their business. It is for someone in the 'higher-ups' who needs to see what is to be done!

When you turn your attention to what is happening to the employed graduates, we find a herculean effort being put in by the Industry in order to mould the employed graduates to meet their requirement. Industries often carry a constant level of vacancy - many a times, even critical and/or essential roles in their organisation are vacant. When I say critical roles, it is those roles that whose job function or whose routine activities are vital for safety, uptime, quality, cost and competitiveness & sustainability of their business; whereas, by essential roles, I mean those jobs that when left vacant, will even jeopardise the basic production volumes and keep the operations rolling. Some organisations develop a 'bench strength' in all functions so that these critical or essential roles do not go vacant at any time. But invariably, individuals in these "benches", slowly over a period of time, turn into waste or the capable ones turn into and develop some other expertise altogether & makes his / her benching itself a waste. In the end, quite often, we see people 'double-hatting' in order to keep the business functioning.

Generally about 50% of the new graduate recruits every year will no longer be in the job in the following year. Either they left because they wanted to pursue higher education, got a better job, got a job near to home town or simply got dropped by the industry itself because he or she did not meet the requirement even after one year of rigorous, precious and thankless training. Based on my experience, within about five years, only about 5 to 10% of the graduate engineers who got recruited, stick around.

So clearly, we can see both Industry & the Institutes are fighting their own battles perennially. Quite often Industry blames the Educational Institutes, education systems & the overarching cultural preferences of the country. Whereas, though the Institutes do not blame the Industry, they tend to work in their own framework and try to excel in what they are doing. This type of problems happen typically when you have silo mentality and do not look at the big picture.

Some sort of Industry - Institute co-ordination programs do exist that try to address the problem described above. Some of such programs include Internships, in-plant training, apprenticeships, scholarships, campus interviews, etc. Lot of Industries develop a special course jointly in association with some Institutes and let their young employees go through the course conducted at the institute. Industry leaders & experts too join hands and cover topics in the class rooms so that industry specific problems are brought about in the curriculum. Industries spend quite a sum of money for such programs and accordingly, only bright & promising people are nominated for these courses.

Still there is gap and require some out-of-the-box approach so that the Industry & Institutes work together, help each other and thus solve their respective problems together.

One of the critical aspect to be considered is to re-frame the problem statement, which envelops the problems of both the Industry and Institutes into one. That is, instead looking at two different problems separately, why not consider a single goal and find ways to attain the goal jointly?

The Institute's goal has been to ensure all seats are filled up, no faculty position is vacant, there are no drop outs among the student community during the course of the programs, maximum number of students pass through with first class, have nil or minimum students who fail the course and run into additional semesters. Some institutes also aim to be the best institute among their category in the country, maximum number of their students get employed, large and famous Industries pick up their students on priority, create maximum number of doctorates etc.

The industry's goal has been to run the business safely, meet customers needs & regulatory requirement and make money. To this end, they apply technology, deploy plant and machinery, make products / provide services. The Industry depends on capable, competent & creative people to excel in their endeavours besides deploying huge capital.

A quid-pro-quo approach for solving both problems with in a single frame would be to join hands - i.e. beyond whatever is being done jointly till now. For instance, the Industry must look at the Institutes as "suppliers"; similarly, the Institutes must look at Industry as "customer."

Industry must take larger role in Institutes business and in the same fashion, the Institutes must re-orient their entire programs considering how to fulfil the Industries needs in sustainable manner. Their respective goals & KPIs must get completely redefined in order to make this a success, a win-win program.

Industries can deploy their experts as faculties into the Institutes. These faculties make multiple & repeated tours to the Institutes and help the Institute re-orient the curriculum, and also get engaged with students in teaching, coaching and work on overall development of the students. Nothing like a customer visiting the suppliers location and work with the technical staff in getting exactly what they want and what is good for them. The HR professionals too need to go to Institutes frequently / periodically and help the students develop in several other aspects of professionals development. The expert faculty must also bring the students into Industry; that them like they are their own and provide proper opportunities to see and learn their subjects in more practical environment. The students, on their part, see the "real-world-out-there" and apply their technical knowledge. Industry, instead of depending on other suppliers & vendors for emerging solutions, e.g. AI, etc. can develop what would suit them better using young minds, as compared to standard industry products. Needless to mention, Industries must fund the Institutes handsomely; in the long terms, this approach will help the Industry in developing the required competencies & capabilities at much lower costs and at the same time develop the same in a sustainable manner.

The entire engagement program must be strategic in nature & thus, must be guided by the top leaders of both Industry & the Institutes. The specific programs, durations, budget, etc. must get accounted into either parties annual plans & mid year plan. Target Vs. Actuals must be monitored on quarterly basis by the board / investors.

Presently, many leading companies select the best students through campus interviews; i.e. they go-out-there and select the best one available - it is like some one going to a fruit shop and picking up the best fruit available. What is being advocated here is that the customer work with the farmer and make sure he or she gets the best fruits are cultivated in the first place.

In the English Premier league, the football clubs spend enormous money in cultivating young and potential champions. They go across the country, across the whole of Europe, Latin American countries, Africa etc. and identify very young promising talents in the age group of 8 to 15 years and bring them to their academies & develop them. Of course they also go out in the market every year and buy & sell players, but actually almost all top players in the market are actually grown out from one or the other club's academy.

Similar approach may be used with suitable modification by Industry and use Institutes as supplying / developing field.

The costs and establishments of training centres, recruitment, retaining talents, developing experts and authorities in specific domains will be enormously reduced; so also the pains of proper Human Resource management / development. The approach can also ensure Industry get rid of the perennial vacancy problems.

Similarly, for Institutes, the pain of educating & graduating students and seeing many of them not getting employment can be avoided. This approach will help enhance practical orientation to education and the out going graduates will be more useful to the society on the whole.