"The Next Workforce"

This Tuesday, I spoke on a panel at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. about what companies can do to build their own skills pipeline – an important issue facing companies in this era of change.

During ‘The Next Workforce’ breakout session, I highlighted many of the five areas of investments TCS has made to enable a future-ready workforce. Reskilling and upskilling TCS’ current and newly hired workforce; preparing young people for 21st century careers; empowering individuals towards access, equity and inclusion; investing in academia and research; and joint industry efforts to close the skills gap.

 From the Inside Out

Our first big transition in today’s Business 4.0 era was our people – the backbone of the company – and their diverse skillsets that have helped us to stay relevant to our customers in a time of unprecedented change. 

We know that 35% of the skills in today’s workforce will change between 2015 and 2020, and 52% of all employees will need some form of upskilling and reskilling to remain gainfully employed or participate in other 21st century careers. That’s why we have implemented comprehensive re-skilling and computational thinking programs across North America – working hard to mitigate the challenging impact of AI and automation integration and create new opportunities. As these advances continue to disrupt the way we work, the skills needed to succeed in this new era are in short supply, creating an increased global challenge for talent. Through our Business 4.0 framework, we are helping companies and communities shift from optimizing scarce resources to harnessing an abundance of technologies, talent and ecosystems.

 As a company — and as an industry — we can and need to do much more to ensure people are equipped with the right skills to capitalize on the evolution of the workplace and unleash their potential, but it is also imperative that individuals develop a mindset for lifelong learning to remain employable. At TCS, we’ve implemented an internal strategy of organic talent development, which has resulted in the training of more than 320,000 employees with the latest digital technologies and almost 400,000 being trained in agile methodologies over the last few years.

 Preparing the Future Workforce

?TCS is a pioneer in creating a positive correlation between the young generation and the future of work.

We are deeply committed to promoting constructive public-private collaboration on the urgent and fundamental reform of education systems and labor policies, to prepare workforces for the rapidly evolving nature of work and 21st century jobs.

TCS has been an early proponent in investing in learning experiences that not only benefit businesses, but also the community at large. We are leading the charge through several cross-sector efforts such as goIT, Ignite My Future in School, Million Women Mentors, and more. Alongside partners, customers and industry peers, we are inspiring children – many from ethnic minorities, marginalized groups and low-income families – toward promising STEM education and careers. 

Additionally, TCS has partnered with several leading U.S. universities and invested millions of dollars in research and development efforts in areas including data privacy, genetic sequencing, nanotechnology, and mobile technology. TCS contributed $35 million to Carnegie Mellon University and $50 million to Cornell Tech over the past two years, enabling these institutions and their students to drive research in next-generation technologies, while honing their skills in diverse sectors. 

TCS also recognizes the value of investing in multilateral partnerships to close the skills gap. Since 2016, TCS and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have been working on the Closing the Skills Gap project, which includes a unique model for driving scale and impact on the critical issue of skills in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Early in 2019, we announced that we had received commitments to retrain more than 17.2 million of the world’s current and future workforce – with 1.2 million of that number coming directly from TCS’ own efforts. 

Human capital has been the largest factor in our business, and the sustainability of revenue growth is directly dependent on our organization's ability to attract, retain and train the right talent. I hope my insights from this panel will help other organizations navigate this new era towards growth and continued success.