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Employers
should train young talent at an early stage in their career, to
make them highly competent and confident to take up additional responsibilities,
says NK Marwah
Professionals
who had spent 5-10 years at work, in fact had very insignificant
FLP exposure. So we can say that number of FLPs is reversibly proportional
to years of working in our population under study. This must be
a representative picture of our IT sector. When OEXP Vs FLPS were
compared between people with 2-3 years or 5-10 years of OEXP at
confidence level 3, percentage was equally distributed (36% and
33% respectively). Nearly 70% of total number of persons under our
assessment, having level 4 confidence, had only 2-3 years of job
experience and those with 5-10 years spent at this competency level
were only 26%. This is surprising but a matter of concern. Indication
of people just spending more years at work becoming redundant is
obvious.
Following
table 4 shows the confidence level of people for FLPs (Full life
Projects)
 Experience
in Unix and NT: More than 80% of software professionals had knowledge
of Unix and NT, 35% of them had exposure to both, 34% had experience
with NT. The number of people without any exposure was small (15%).
When OEXP was considered for the same set, 51% of persons exposed
to Unix and NT had 2-3 years work experience and percentage of people
with large OEXP + Unix-NT expertise was significantly less. The
confidence level analysis for the same is plotted below.
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40% of population had level-3 confidence, 28% were at level-2
and at level-4 only 18% people qualified.
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People with level-2 competency under 1-3 years of experience comprised
of 47%. Even those with more than 5 years experience had maximum
percentage in level-2 category.
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At level-3, 45% of sample size was in 1-3 years OEXP group.
Large
Projects (LPs): 40 plus man months as a threshold has been considered
for LPs. Of the total population of IT persons under study, only
40% had done 40 plus man months large projects and when SEXP of
these was seen, 50% of these 53 people with LPs exposure were among
50% of SEXP crowd and fell in the category of 1-3 years of work
experience. Confidence of the workforce towards LPs remained equally
distributed at level 3 and 4. 47% of IT persons were at competency
level 3 and 43% of those at level 4 had 13-36 months experience.
See table 5 and 6 for detailed results.
Managing
the team of people: Despite spending years at work, 61% of our
sample size (209) had never before managed a team of people and
13% maximum of the IT personnel had guided a team of 3-4 persons.
Significant proportion of people who never managed a team had 1-3
years of OEXP. This indicates that these people may be given a chance
to do it only after longer period of time spent in a company. Confidence
of these professionals remained equally spread between level 3 and
4 and 60% of these were with 1-3 years of OEXP (from 13% of total
strata), not the ones with 5-10 years of job exposure. This emphasises
the utmost need to give these young IT professionals a higher chance
to manage a team at work.
Software
Delivery Process (SDP): This is very important aspect of an
IT career. Of the total 209 persons under the assessment lens, 64%
did not know SDP at all, these were mainly with 1-4 years of work
experience (61% portion). Of the remaining 36% who knew SDP, 47%
were at level 3 and 33% were at confidence level 4. At level-3,
OEXP was throughout distributed but at level-4, OEXP was clustered
at 25-36 months and 61-120 months.
System
Tuning and Database Tuning (SDBT): The pie chart here says more
effectively about the poor status of SDBT among IT professionals.
Oracle
Tools : When people were questioned for their Oracle Tools experience
(OTOO), 55% said “Yes” and 45% gave “No” answer.
Of this 44% strata without OTOO exposure, 70% persons were with
less than 3 years of work profile, again pointing that probably
OTOO exposure maybe given only to those working for long time in
a company. However competency level of maximum (64%) was at level
4 thus reasonably good. OTOO is only known to people with software
ability at level 3 and 4.
As
far as domain knowledge is concerned, 57% had it and 43% did not
acquire it. Of this 57% strata possessing it, 48%, 42% and 9% had
exposure in finance, manufacturing and others respectively. These
all experts were at level 3 of competency and had OEXP ranging from
1 to 10 years, thus needs tremendous improvements in future.
Conclusion
In
our IT industry which is growing very fast and internationally recognised,
employers have to realise the potential of younger talents and impart
adequate training, managerial as well as overseas technical exposure
at an early stage in their career to make them sound and highly
competent. Redundancy in older generations with years of experience
has to be recognised and dealt with. Execution of a project from
start to finish by one person would motivate him and hold responsible
to overcome hurdles while doing so. Unfortunately, highly qualified
young IT personnel are made to work as sheer knowledge worker working
like a production worker due to traditional employer thinking. Fixed
targets at a job with deadlines along with reward systems can only
raise the standard of IT professionals here.
Concluded
(NK Marwah is managing director of Magna Services Private
Limited)
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