I did not get any negative comments on yesterday's blog. In fact people were sounding relieved. We go to colleges to recruit in larger numbers and it affects the over all education system. But we dont realize that it affects our business also.
Over the years we have perfected the process of campus recruitment. Or that is what we think. This is similar to any software development process which we think we improve continuously.
We are going to campuses for a very long time now. We learnt a lot and perfected an assembly line process.
In the beginning when we were with less funds, we were getting the recruits sit in the front of the bicycle we were riding. Like a Girl friend or lover and the relationship was so passionate.
Later when we could afford a little bit more we had a wife in pillion of our scooter, a kid in the front and a smaller kid between us and our wife. There was love, duty and some amount of accommodating ability that we showed them.
Later we were driving a car with few more people and somebody probably who is sitting in the rear kicked our back.
The family grew and we know it all and sudden explosion of growth we are driving huge garbage collection trucks which go around streets with plenty of garbage bins. Now we have our own uniformed people to come with us. We are equipped with machinery like fork lifts and pulverizers.
We come back with a big monolithic chunk of ungraded garbage.
And in the material we supply mixing this to the extent of 40% to 50% gave us a gross margin of more than 30%.
Who cares?
Our projects rot and smell!
Yes, we need more people to sustain the business but how do we know that we are sourcing it correctly?
At most we donate books, conduct some basic training programs, sponsor and participate at symposiums and give guest lectures.
Have we ever tried to know or improve what is being taught to all these people?
If we do it we will not be driving garbage trucks but cruising with people in the clouds.
We even shy away from putting good people in to our own quality and training departments, I think I am asking for too much!
It is time to give things back now! Why cant we use a minor portion of the calculated and affordable bench strength to teach some good things to all these poor boys and girls at colleges?
We have spilt colleges into tiers and go for a Guinness record with tier 1. But remember the 50th person there is not going to be anyway superior to a 5th rank holder in a tier 3 college where none of us go for recruitment.
It is not only tiers we also have classifications like software branches (CSc & IT), circuit branches (ECE & EEE) machinery branches (Mech, Production) and we dont even leave civil.
It is not only that our children are not going to get a good school education the future society is going to import civil and mechanical engineers from foreign countries paying a premium.
We need to have a better system in place at least now to safeguard future and our own business.
Our selfishness must be driving us towards this!
Over the years we have perfected the process of campus recruitment. Or that is what we think. This is similar to any software development process which we think we improve continuously.
We are going to campuses for a very long time now. We learnt a lot and perfected an assembly line process.
In the beginning when we were with less funds, we were getting the recruits sit in the front of the bicycle we were riding. Like a Girl friend or lover and the relationship was so passionate.
Later when we could afford a little bit more we had a wife in pillion of our scooter, a kid in the front and a smaller kid between us and our wife. There was love, duty and some amount of accommodating ability that we showed them.
Later we were driving a car with few more people and somebody probably who is sitting in the rear kicked our back.
The family grew and we know it all and sudden explosion of growth we are driving huge garbage collection trucks which go around streets with plenty of garbage bins. Now we have our own uniformed people to come with us. We are equipped with machinery like fork lifts and pulverizers.
We come back with a big monolithic chunk of ungraded garbage.
And in the material we supply mixing this to the extent of 40% to 50% gave us a gross margin of more than 30%.
Who cares?
Our projects rot and smell!
Yes, we need more people to sustain the business but how do we know that we are sourcing it correctly?
At most we donate books, conduct some basic training programs, sponsor and participate at symposiums and give guest lectures.
Have we ever tried to know or improve what is being taught to all these people?
If we do it we will not be driving garbage trucks but cruising with people in the clouds.
We even shy away from putting good people in to our own quality and training departments, I think I am asking for too much!
It is time to give things back now! Why cant we use a minor portion of the calculated and affordable bench strength to teach some good things to all these poor boys and girls at colleges?
We have spilt colleges into tiers and go for a Guinness record with tier 1. But remember the 50th person there is not going to be anyway superior to a 5th rank holder in a tier 3 college where none of us go for recruitment.
It is not only tiers we also have classifications like software branches (CSc & IT), circuit branches (ECE & EEE) machinery branches (Mech, Production) and we dont even leave civil.
It is not only that our children are not going to get a good school education the future society is going to import civil and mechanical engineers from foreign countries paying a premium.
We need to have a better system in place at least now to safeguard future and our own business.
Our selfishness must be driving us towards this!
Sir, i totally agree with you on campus recruitment process. Something we should change for better living.
ReplyDeleteBala, completely agree with you. What I notice is the attitude of the young generation. We rarely see that zeal and eagerness of learning (or) providing "value for money" they get. There used to be days everyone used to learn on the job. Now, many organizations conduct long duration training programs to make the new recruits "Project Ready". In spite of that the productivity is negative. (Sorry to generalize this here but that's the reality).
ReplyDeleteComing to the training the newly recruits using our Bench strength, it is my personal experience that there are at least 50% of them who can be better productive. But how many of us are willing to spare that time in mentoring the youngsters. How many organizations would really want their senior talented team to be part of the mentoring programs. They are always kept busy in their own Delivery and Business Targets and driving the loads of "Garbage Trucks".
The change should come at root level. Improving the quality of the education at the Engineering Colleges Level itself. Change should be at the corporate level, avoid trying to create Guinness Records in recruitment, should realize that, more than meeting the demand-supply, sustaining of the business with right quality is more important. Last but not least is the change in the mindset of the students and parents. Know their interests and get enriched in their own fields than treating Engineering is the short cut for early settlement in life through IT Career. Once we have these, people will not be tumbling at the first year itself in their Fundamentals courses.
Pawan, I will be writing about college education standards also from what i see in the books they follow, my experience interviewing them in the campus and training them during the induction.
DeleteGood points, Sir. Including tier 2 and tier 3 colleges into the system will benefit everyone. As you said, the stakeholders should care. They can't continue to be ignorant forever.
ReplyDelete