In an era of constant change and evolving professional landscapes, it is imperative to equip individuals with the knowledge and skills required to stay resilient and competitive in their careers. The “Beating the Trends: The Trends of 2023 and Their Impact on 2024” webinar aimed to address this challenge by offering valuable insights and guidance.
In the webinar on 30th Aug 2023, eminent corporate leaders had a productive discussion on this topic to explore innovative solutions, share insights, and discuss strategies to combat unemployment and create pathways to economic freedom.
The webinar started by providing a comprehensive overview of the trends that have shaped 2023 and explored how they will likely influence job markets and industries in 2024. We then discussed the vital skills that job seekers need to cultivate, such as adaptability, digital literacy, and working knowledge of AI tools along with soft skills such as creativity, emotional intelligence, and resilience to adapt and acquire new skills. Finally, we spoke about the in-demand skills in 2024, where expert speakers offered guidance on how participants can prepare for the evolving job market, talking about key industries and new-age jobs.
The webinar had four eminent industry experts who shared their views on addressing the importance of skill development, training opportunities and trends that dominated the workplace in 2023. Munira Loliwala, AVP, Business Strategy, TeamLease Digital moderated the session.
To share his views on the topic, one of the speakers Puneet Jain | Head HR | Me N Moms Pvt. Ltd. said, “Nowadays, though industries and all the companies, all the startups are coming with a deadline, this is where this skill enhancement or the skill question is coming up. So, every industry comes with a deadline so they need immediate results and complete pressure is on the executive part, the doer part and the employees part, and us also. So, there are two people, who are working in the companies; there are strategists, the planners which we are into the manager level and the doer. So, this is what is happening in India as of now. Earlier, 10-20-30 years ago, the business started with a mindset that this would take some time to set up. Now the companies are coming up with a deadline so that ideas are very dynamics and all the pressure is coming onto the employees or the manager or the strategist”.
Another speaker Yogesh Basole | Head HR | Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd. said, “We are in the time and era in the human history that what Alvin Toffler said about a future shock in a book which I would have read 2-3 decades back. Alvin Toffler’s quote resonates I remember it throughout since then that the people who would be literate in the future that we are talking about are not the people who cannot read and write but are those people who could sense the trends, the inflexion points and have a learning agility rather than have the modes of education which was a classroom, which was more a structure that would probably build you for one particular skill for entire life. So, this era in which we are in is an opportunity that I see we have the best of technology, what we did not have a decade back, a century back, we have the best of the capital available, capital which you could set the business up with or take your career anywhere in the world”.
The third expert on the panel was Poonam Agarwal | Director HR | BSH Home Appliances India. Poonam had some very useful insights. She said, “COVID has completely disrupted the way we work and we never anticipated that we would adapt our working approach in the way that we are doing right now. We had never imagined before COVID that Machine Services could be done without sending a service engineer, but then post-COVID or during COVID we have realised that is possible, through various digital approaches or automation approaches that we have followed and that is the learning. Talking about agility and mindset becomes the prime factor. Now, everybody is talking about cloud computing, blockchain, machine learning, AI, and IoT, these are all buzzwords, apart from cyber security, digital marketing, and data analytics, these are the words which people are talking about and that is where the future of every role is changing and if we don’t adapt we will not be able to sustain”.
The webinar also had Beena More | SVP & CHRO | Bank Of India Investment Managers Pvt. Ltd. as a speaker. Beena added valuable points to the discussion. She said, “The Learning and Development in a certain way from what it was in the past to now, essentially, too much importance has been given to a lot happening in the digital environment, that we are missing out on the basics, whereby simple unlearning and relearning skill sets are so important. Whether we talk about the people who had been baby boomers or grandfathers and all in the system or for a matter of fact the gig workers that we are talking about, because everybody is in the fast pace of earning money and working on projects rather than sitting across and having those standalone loyalty services. So, that is a clear mindset shift I would say, and in a purview of that what’s essentially important is that we need to be agile and disciplined, and what’s missing out in the youngsters these days is a sheer amount of discipline that they need to bring into themselves and the ownership in terms of whatever they are required to do”.
The panel discussion ended with a Q&A session where members of the audience, mostly HR professionals from various companies, enthusiastically posed their queries to the panel members. The India Employer Forum webinar on Beating the Trends: The Trends of 2023 and Their Impact on 2024 was relevant for the time and had leaders who added value to the discussion by bringing in different perspectives.
View the entire session here: IEF Webinar #8 | Beating the Trends : The Trends of 2023 and Their Impact on 2024
