2018 CAREER SPECIAL... Career Goals to Succeed in 2018

Career Goals to Succeed in 2018

Digital disruption, artificial intelligence and a roller coaster of a job market are changing the way we work. The ability to adapt to new workplace requirements will determine future success for both the employees and the organisation. bring you the lowdown on the state of business environment/jobs in a slew of sectors, and how employees can adapt their career goals

MANUFACTURING ‘INCORPORATE LEARNINGS FROM CHANGING INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE ’

WHAT’S CHANGING Disruption is the new normal in today’s day and age. New technologies such as driverless cars, shared mobility, AI and robotics, along with innovations in communication are changing the way we work and live. Massive and frequent change is a reality, and is altering the way traditional manufacturing functions. All these changes will have an impact on the people working in the sector and hence the over-arching career goal for anyone working in manufacturing today should be to understand the emerging trends and make sure they upskill themselves accordingly, says Milind Apte, HR head at CEAT.

Career goals should be based on an “outsidein” approach, incorporating learnings from the changing industry landscape.

Employees can develop this approach by understanding current market disruptions and focusing on innovation in research and development.

People are responsible for investing their time and energy in upskilling themselves to create value in products, and should be part of organisation drives on reskilling and upskilling and get certifications to gain digital knowledge.

TELECOM ‘CHANGES CREATE NEW OPPORTUNITIES ’

WHAT’S CHANGING Any large change in industry creates new opportunities. The telecom industry is witnessing significant consolidation, new models of customer reach and service. Similarly, consumer behaviour and consumption patterns are changing. All of these developments demand new and unique skills and competencies, says Suvamoy Roy Choudhury, director-HR at Vodafone India.

The telecom sector will demand new future-fit technology skills in very large volumes in IoT, Big Data, analytics, cloud and Artificial Intelligence.

Expansion of rural footprint and particularly rural data consumption and emerging use cases will continue to sustain conventional telecommunication technology skills.

PHARMA ‘BE READY TO REINVENT ’

WHAT’S CHANGING In the wake of current regulatory challenges, the pharma industry is going through a phase of reinvention. Considering the rise in number of inspections by USFDA over the last few years, career goals with respect to manufacturing functions would be including ‘Quality Mindset’ as part of work culture, ability to think beyond just “compliance” and practicing world-class standard data integrity, says Rituraj Sar, headglobal learning & organisation development at Lupin Ltd.

For those in the field force, career goals should include keeping abreast with the latest inventory management tools and hands-on exposure to Data Analytics. Career goals for employees in the R&D space should include ability to adopt technology and understanding of professional project management skills. Career goals with respect to manufacturing functions would be making ‘Quality Mindset’ as a part of work culture and building ability to think beyond just “compliance”.

BFSI

‘ LEARN TO DIGITALLY INTERFACE WITH CUSTOMERS ’

WHAT’S CHANGING The most important career goal for employees working in the banking and financial sector—in different roles such as product, relationship management, operations/ processing or risk management—is to align their professional knowledge and skillsets with the rapidly changing digital technology ecosystem. The ability to collaborate with multiple systems and provide rapid modelling without compromising on experience becomes the mainstream strategy for innovating on customer experience transformations, says Deodutta Kurane, group president of human capital management at Yes Bank.

Employees should invest in courses for refreshing/ acquiring skills of the future in areas such as virtual reality and augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence, cyber security, big data/advanced analytics (coupled with UI/UX), digital marketing, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics/process automation, and position themselves to seize emerging and challenging career opportunities. Employees must reorient themselves accordingly and quickly learn how to use technology to digitally interface with customers and deliver products and services.

TECHNOLOGY ‘BROADEN THE APPROACH FOR LEARNING ’

WHAT’S CHANGING The coming year will be defined by behaviours such as learning agility, risk taking and knowledge-seeking. As the landscape of technology continues to change, the key focus of employees in the IT industry should be on ‘cross skilling’. It is essential that we invest in learning new technologies outside our domain and gain functional knowledge in emerging industries like fintech, social and digital media, says Shraddhanjali Rao, head of human resources at SAP India.

Employees need to develop a sense of urgency when it comes to learning and aggressively gain in-depth knowledge in more than one technology area. For instance, one of the SAP India’s employees is bringing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to life in core manufacturing industries. Fresh talent should broaden their experience by taking up stretch assignments in different teams so as to dabble with multiple technologies simultaneously.

FMCG/RETAIL ‘TAKE TIME FOR HONEST

SELF-REFLECTION ’

WHAT’S CHANGING The business environment is ever changing and employees must be able to showcase agility in learning new skills. It is important for employees to start the New Year with an honest self-reflection and assessment of their own strengths, aspirations and sense of purpose, says Amit Prakash, HR head at Marico.

Honest self-introspection through the year can help employees build core skills as well as cross-functional ones. It will also help them develop functional and leadership competencies at a time when the need is to be innovative and drive a strong personal connect with customers..

Employees in the FMCG/retail sector must set the goal of not just assessing their strengths and aspirations but also identifying their career anchors, to ensure that their sense of purpose is aligned with their career goals.

Prachi Verma Dadhwal & Brinda Dasgupta

ET2JAN18