Soft skills training: Outsourced vs in-house

Shipra Arora / New Delhi

While making a business presentation at a prospective client’s office in California, Anand (a business development manager in a mid-sized software company), overlooking the fact that there was a lady in the boardroom, sweepingly addressed the gathering as “gentlemen”. Though his company finally won the project, the mistake (even though purely unintentional) cost him his promotion. This is just one of the many instances how the finer aspects of the trade like interpersonal communication, business ethics, effective presentations, e-mail etiquette, self-awareness, persistence, confidence, self-motivation, trustworthiness, adaptability and a talent for collaboration now count and can no longer be ignored. Companies have now started linking soft skills to their employees’ appraisals and compensation packages and is considered an important factor during recruitment.

It is true that there are no independent industry rese-arch figures available on the growth in demand for soft skills, but companies on an average, estimate around 30-40 percent growth. The requirements notwithstanding, training for soft skills remains debatable—whether it should be in-house or outsourced. While IT training houses have already jumped onto the bandwagon to meet the growing training requirements, they have not found many takers. Most companies still feel that building up soft skills is a domain that is best taken care of internally by the HR department (due to closer proximity and better understanding of employees), rather than outsourcing to a third party. However, with the burgeoning training needs and the growing complexity of requisite soft skills, the scenario is likely to change, leading more companies to seek professional soft skills training from outside. Ajay Kumar Sharma, president and CEO of New Horizons India, informs that worldwide the Business Skills Fundamental Series training market was $10.2 billion in 2003 and is expected to reach $16.8 billion in 2006, growing at a CAGR of 11.7 percent.

Soft skills gain prominence as IT businesses go global

A software developer is not a scientist working in isolation within the confines of his own domain. He has to interact with people, making it necessary to develop skills to interact both inside and outside the organisation. Further, Indian IT companies are now involved in bigger projects where customer interface has become a necessity. Anbu Rathinavel, dean of Nalanda Corporate University of Polaris Soft-ware Lab, points out that soft skills are high in the list of requirements for global business. Doing business with clients from across the world demands not just a high degree of technical skills but greater sensitivity and awareness of culture specific behaviours, variety of business situation vis-à-vis the geography specific issues that may arise.

“We are interacting with people who come from different cultures and countries. The need to understand the customer, not only in terms of the project delivery but also with reference to the attitude to be able to relate to them is very high,” says Suman Nair, head of human resources at Mastek. At overseas client sites emp-loyees are exposed to client teams.

Need for formal training

Our education system has a greater focus on learning analytical skills, logic, etc. This is important for technical education which is more structured. Preneet Bindra Sinha, manager—people strategy, Sapient, believes that soft skills training is no longer considered just a matter of self-development, companies are finally beginning to understand its value in doing business. Mamata Nanda, head of corporate HR, vMoksha Technologies asserts that formal training is important for the skill set to be taken seriously. “It is also very evident to us that the transformation that occurs in demeanour, language and conduct following a two-day workshop justifies the time, effort and resource deployment in soft skills training,” she adds.

Organisations now insist on a mix of technical and soft skills training for its employees. Companies like Mastek, Polaris, vMoksha, Sun Microsystems, Sapient, CSC, Tavant, Infinite have incorporated soft skills into their training agenda. For instance, Mastek provides at least 12 days of just soft skills training for its staff members every year, in addition to various technology, functional and process related learning. It also has a competency based assessment programme.

vMoksha has designed a customised Personal Effectiv-eness module that encompasses all necessary non-technical skills. Almost 25 percent of the mandatory training requirement for every employee is focussed on the soft skills area, while 75 percent is allocated for technical skills training.

Sun has specialised programmes for specific needs. At Sapient it is ensured that people who are involved in solution design at client site have taken soft skills training like facilitation training and time management. CSC, on the other hand, has a clear-cut process of role-based training. All the employees in the organisation go thr-ough training according to their career progression. At Infinite Computer Solutions, normally 30 percent of the total training to be imparted to an employee is focussed on developing his/her soft skills.

Outsourcing of training

Many IT companies are now outsourcing their requirements to training houses, though the common perception persists that an in-house team can handle the task better. “Soft skills training programmes are more appropriate and contextual when they are delivered in-house. It doesn’t have to strictly be shouldered by the HR department, even others within the company who are looked up to for certain soft skills make excellent trainers. We have been using this model in Sapient right from its inception,” says Bindra.

Anand Thatte, head of Aptech Soft Skills Training, Aptech, calls it a myth that is fast changing, as outsourced co-mpanies now perform objective analysis and proper Training Need Analysis (TNA) before they commence training. Customised solutions are offe-red for different batches and groups. “We have seen a growing trend, more so from the IT industry,” adds Thatte.

New Horizons also expects a surge in demand. The company conducted 14,581 days of soft skills training worldwide in 2003 against a planned target of 8,999 days.

Benefits of engaging a training house

Training houses do offer certain advantages. Madan Nagal-dinne, vice president of HR, Tavant Technologies, feels that soft skills training is too important to be designed without a specialist, given the fact that IT companies run thin on resources in HR and training. Hemant Sharma, HR head of Sun Microsystems India, agrees that professional training outfits bring in fresh perspective and are able to look at things differently. “They are not biased in any way, which is a big benefit,” he adds.

Rathinavel points out that outsourcing can bring in the best practices in soft skills training. Furthermore, employees are less reluctant to ask all sorts of questions in front of an internal faculty.

Meanwhile, the training companies are banking on the ability to bridge the gap between time and availability of enough in-house expertise. The advantages of an external training outfit are that they bring to the table their experience and perspectives which can be blended with individual organisational needs. To make this modus operandi successful Anuj Kumar, general manager of corporate HR, CSC India, says that external consultants should be able to understand the business well, know the requirement effectively, should have strong diagnosis ability and also should not try and use the same medicine for all problems.

Balanced approach

The demand for engaging training companies might be steadily growing, but in-house training will always remain. In fact, we are seeing the emergence of a balanced approach. According to Nair, as an organisation, it is advisable to outsource the programme and also develop the skill in-house with ‘Train the Trainer’ kind of approach. Companies like Pol-aris feel that certain sensitive topics relating to customer information and problem areas therein can be best handled in-house.

Many companies follow the golden rule of a balanced approach. For instance, Polaris follows a mix and match system—in-house expertise is tapped whenever there is a need and outside experts are engaged when required. At Sun, the internal HR teams play an important role from the perspective of working with external trainers to make them understand the organisational culture, traditions and best practices.

A critical part of the HR department’s training role at Sun is to actually analyse what the training needs are, identify competencies, see where the gaps exist and then work together with professional trainers to design the programme. “While we do outsource our training needs, the onus of designing the programme lies internally,” adds Sharma of Sun Microsystems.

Sunder Rajan, general manager of HR and administration, Infinite Computer Solutions, says that a lot depends on the organisational growth plan and its challenges. “It is better to impart about 75 percent to

80 percent of all training by in-house trainers. The balance is to add variety and for better benchmarked trainers,” adds Rajan. The proportion between the two is typically decided by organisations on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis of internal training versus outsourced training.

Conclusion

With the increasing competition that Indian IT companies are facing from MNCs, offering identical services in their own backyard, the former are compelled to ensure that their employees acquire the necessary communication skills and etiquette. This compelling need is driving the market for soft skills training. With the proven technical superiority of Indians, this additional competency can truly enable them to reach the top spot.

It is this compelling need that training houses are leveraging on to create a sizeable market for soft skills training in India. It is another matter however that the importance given to soft skills training in terms of budget, etc, is still a concern area as technical training always takes more priority over soft skills development.

shipra@expresscomputeronline.com