Training Through Social Networking
Social networking is becoming more and more popular. Almost everyone we know can be reached on orkut, facebook, myspace and other well known social networks. The idea of social networking is to enable people to keep in touch and share information, pictures, videos and so on even when they are scattered all over the globe. Logging into a social network brings all your friends together at one place and lets you interact with them freely. An extremely effective tool to reach out to a lot of people at one time.
Now think about this from the perspective of a company which wants to train a group of new recruits. How about creating an unique social network for trainees and interacting with them through it. Not only will it solve a lot of problems pertaining to finding training rooms, equipments, trainers etc, but by virtue of being an unique network within the company, no outsider can get access to it. Training involves extensive information sharing, brainstorming by the recruits, feedback and group discussions. All these can be done with the help of a social network. If you have a new idea, put up a post for all to see and comment. If you want a discussion with your trainer or colleagues, initiate a chat session. All you need is a desk and a PC of your own.
Apart from sharing information and discussing, online web tools offer provisions for virtual meeting places/spaces as well. More on this exciting technology later.
Infosys Training Attempts to Address Employability Issues
How does an introduction to the booming IT industry at an early age by a premier company sound to you? That’s exactly what Infosys is doing in their “Catch Them Young” programme. The programme is aimed at identifying talented school students and training them for a successful IT career. The students are chosen through a written test and trained in computer languages and other IT functions.For outstanding performers,there are opportunities for working on a real time project with Infosys paying a stipend.
In addition to this, Infosys also runs the “Rural Reach Program” where school students in rural areas are exposed to the basics of computer education so that they can aspire to a career along those lines later. The “Train the Trainer” programme is also worth mentioning as it’s objective is to train the lecturers of technical institutions so that they can handle their courses better and equip their students with the right skills.
Training Blues
While everyone agrees upon the advantages of students equipping themselves with good communication skills, what is neglected is the prospect of professionals who can train the students. I am talking about the teachers in various Engineering colleges here. It goes without saying that to be successful as a teacher in this field, one needs to have a clear understanding of the needs of the industry and the kind of communication skills desired. By and large, the industry requires its workforce to be aware of domain-specific scientific and technical vocabulary, ability to speak politely and positively, reporting, clear and precise writing and making presentations. Now the question is how many teachers teaching English courses in our Engineering colleges possess these skills?
Many of the teachers recruited by engineering colleges are graduates or post-graduates in English where the emphasis is on English literature. As a result, they are largely unaware of the demands of the industry and most of the English course outline handed out is lost on them. They struggle to make sense of the technical vocabulary and other Industry-specific nuances. Upon asking, I was told by people in the Industry that during their college days, their English teachers often found themselves as baffled by the syllabus as them. Nowadays some reputed institutions like EFLU are offering courses on TEFL/TESL which are attempting to address such demands but good courses of this kind remain few and far between. With the growing demand for professionals with good communication skills, opportunities galore for teachers/trainers who can impart these skills as well. The sooner we realize this, the better.
Time to Wake Up
It never fails to surprise me that though the BPO industry has been around for a while now, our educational institutions do not really train the students for it. Students generally have to depend upon the many BPO training institutes that have mushroomed in recent times.
Why this neglect? In our educational institutions we are still holding on to certain traditional career paths coupled with a tendency to look upon new openings with suspicion. Even after being convinced of their benefits, it takes a long time to implement new courses. Our students end up losing out since they are not aware of these opportunities in the first place and are not given the necessary training. This results in a mad rush for the “established” careers when there are plenty of openings elsewhere.