Why This Company Wants to Pay You to Learn Todays Most In-Demand Skills

Why This Company Wants to Pay You to Learn Todays Most In-Demand SkillsWhy This Company Wants to Pay You to Learn Todays Most In-Demand Skills Should I keep working, or go back to school?Its a question that many of those who are stuck in a career plateau ask themselves, and its a tough one at that. On the one hand, taking time off to hone yur skills can lead to new job opportunities, higher salaries and mora engaging work - on the other hand, you risk losing your steady stream of cash inflow in the short run.But technology tafelgeschirrs and consulting company Infosys believes that you shouldnt have to choose between learning and earning. In fact, last year the company announced plans to hire 10,000 American workers and open four new Technology and Innovation Hubs across the country, which will teach cutting-edge subjects like artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing and more. One of the things in which we take immense pride is our ability to trai n our employees, says Rajesh Ahuja, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Infosys. Its not a competency which weve just developed now - this welches the einbildung of our founders.Through this latest hiring and training initiative, the company expects to make a larger impact in the U.S. than they ever have before. Their ultimate goal? Equipping American workers with the skills of tomorrow. We spoke with Ahuja to learn more about Infosys unique training program, what theyre looking for in employees and how you can join in.Rajesh Ahuja The technology services industry is going through some significant changes, the biggest one being that technology itself is changing quite drastically. The headline you often see is that its changing because of artificial intelligence , but thats only one parte of it. With agile, DevOps, the cloud and so on, the methodology of delivering services is going through a transformation. The second big change is that technology has become very important to t he business world in general. It doesnt matter which industry youre in - technology has become critical rather than just a support function, and the way companies want to engage with service providers like us is different. Lastly, the narrative around global mobility has changed, and its not just in the U.S. Its happening across the world. When we looked at all these factors, we realized we had to start looking at a combination of global talent and local talent, and look at some of the ways in which we can be more suited to the next few years of evolution in our industry. And we thought one of the best strategies was to increase the localization in the U.S. However, as we went through the process, we realized that the bigger picture was the skill shortage and how to make the world more ready for the skills of the future. Theres this constant paradigm of training and re-training that has become a bigger narrative than just localization.Rajesh Ahuja One of the things in which we t ake immense pride is our ability to train our employees. And its not a competency which weve just developed now - this was the vision of our founders. We have 700 full-time educators who work with us to develop new engineering curriculums and impart that knowledge to our employees globally. Whats new is weve taken a deep look at our content and our ability to constantly train and retrain people, and weve launched an industry-leading training platform where we are looking at each individuals needs from their perspective but also from the larger perspective of the skills of tomorrow. Its a combination of online classes , classroom education and dedicated specialists employees can refer to. Were partnering with some of the largest education platforms around the world - LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udacity - and bringing their content to our platform so that our employees get the best learning experience possible. Were going to open a large training facility out of Indianapolis, and we expect that hub to really be a focal point for American workers to join our corporate university. Were not just talking from a globalization perspective of hiring and supplying locally - were also talking about upskilling and reskilling at a large scale to build the local labor market.Rajesh Ahuja We chose these locations based on a combination of three factors. One is talent availability and the potential for us to grow more talent. Its also about where our clients are and how we can serve them better with a local hub. And last but not least, we look at how engaged we can get with the local ecosystem universities, the local government, etc., which allows us to become a part of the larger community.One of the things which we have really adopted is using design to promote innovation and collaboration. Working in any large organization tends to get a bit siloed, so were trying to instill a concept of boundaryless thinking with open spaces and technical areas where people can d esign and work in a deliberate environment. Theres a lot of encouragement to try new things.Rajesh Ahuja Absolutely. Were looking for a mixture of talent, people who are experienced and have been working in the industry and folks who want to work with us. We also look at candidates through a multidisciplinary perspective, so we have STEM graduates, we have college graduates and now we are also expanding our program to those with associates degrees or who came from community colleges. We want to bring people on board who have two strong skills the ability to learn and the willingness to learn, and we are very confident that if they have those two skills, we will be able to teach them the fundamentals of programming or databases or anything else.Rajesh Ahuja Its mostly a traditional interview process. However, for more specific positions, there could be a more involved selection around concepts related to a certain skill or what they are going to study. From an interviewing perspect ive, Infosys believes in understanding the details of the work the candidate has done, whether it was a school project or for their job. The set of questions youll typically get in an interview are around whether or not you can explain what youve done, how it went and what you think you could have done differently. Its about critical thinking and the ability to analyze.Rajesh Ahuja We are a company that truly believes in each individual learning and growing with the organization. We provide not only the opportunity for people to come and do a job, but a platform where theyll learn and grow forever. And the kind of work we do with our clients is phenomenal. Typically, you will get to work on projects that are very important and very cool. And the third would be its a great team - people work very effectively with each other here. We are very cross-cultural, we are very genuine and its a good working environment.Rajesh Ahuja Its great, because your work is not limited by whats give n to you, or whats being requested by a client. You have the ability to ask for more and do more beyond the given. Each individual is asked to think about how they can create value to the client they are serving, which could be better software, better output or less effort required. Our employees come up with ideas and concepts which our clients have never thought of, and these are clients which are large multinational corporations while we are a tech company - we allow our employees to work in small teams to deliver better value. Infosys allows you to push the envelope on things all the time, and youre only limited by your tenacity, your resilience and your ability to think of more.Rajesh Ahuja I think the essential skill that can give everybody the ability to participate in the labor market is learning. If you are continuously able to learn something new, you will stay relevant. Just look at software programmers what people were programming five years back has changed already. I would encourage every individual to learn something new, especially because learning has become easier - there are enough internet resources, video tutorials and individuals available to help you out. But each individual will have to come out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves much more.Rajesh Ahuja A few things. One, the whole digital transformation which is happening across the tech industry is magical, and seeing how deep that digital transformation will really take us is extremely exciting. And when I say digital transformation, I mean digitizing the core of an enterprise, or the way we use services - not just how we consume services. Infosys expects to play a big role in that. The second is how some of the technology of the future will improve our day-to-day. Life is going to become simpler and better by using technologies of the future like artificial intelligence, machine learning and more, and Im excited to see how companies like us can play a part in mak ing the products that impact the world. And finally, the whole dynamic around how skills and work will change, and how we will reimagine and reinvent the roles of our current employees as well as future employees is another very exciting thing.Want to become automation-proof, and get paid to do it? Apply to open Infosys jobs here