INTRODUCTION:

Information technology enabled services sector in India is consisting of two major components: IT Services and business process outsourcing (BPO). Services sector has shown enormous potential as a growth driver in India, with the development of information technology (IT), trade in services was incorporated in an entirely new form. The conventional definition of services as something non-storable, non-tradable and intangible appears to be too inadequate today.

With the development of IT enabled services (ITES), service goods, which were typically thought to be non-tradable, have increasingly been taking up a sizable share of the international business.

When one analyze about trade in the ITES sector for the emerging economies, India assumes particular importance. India has been well recognized, and becoming a popular destination for outsourcing (BPO) work for the developed nations and such works fall under the ITES segment of the economy. The major cities that account for about nearly 90% of the sector's exports are Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Bangalore is considered to be the Silicon Valley of India because it is the leading IT exporter. The organizations realized that in order to survive and grow, they needed to have a sustainable competitive advantage and need to focus all their energies and resources on building their Human Resource skills, as it mentioned clearly by Prahalad and Hamel (1994) stated.

Employee skill sets with their consistent delivery capability is the corner stone of successful ITES companies. Along with the dynamic growth comes the challenge of keeping up the momentum and motivation among its employees to perform better to attain the organization goals. Human Resource Management plays a key role in the success of ITES operations in the country especial the major IT hub of Bangalore city. This study aims to look at the various challenges and prevalent Human Resource practice in the ITES sector in India that are related to recruitment decision making of the employee’s skills acquisition in this sector. Manpower skills have long been viewed as a make or buy decision. Traditionally, this was the relative benefit derived in economic terms on a decision of making a particular component or service, against buying it (Venkatesan 1992), Management theorists believed that the competitive advantage can be maintained by identifying core and non-core functions and transferring the non-core functions to a specialist to conduct the hiring of this workforce in specific areas of the organization.

Skill is widely regarded as a focus for analytical making of enquiries and as a core object for policy interventions in the modern global high technology era. There are essentially two types of skills: soft skills and hard skills. Hard skills are defined as mechanical skills or technical skills that are the level of technical expertise such as anatomy for a doctor, programming language for a computer programmer. While Soft skills refer to a cluster of personal qualities, habits, attitudes and social graces that make someone a good employee and compatible to work with. This paper is based on a field survey conducted for the study of the ITES sector in Bangalore city.

Definition:

Skill:

The ability to successfully perform a range of tasks to a high level of performance; while maintaining the required standards needed to perform a job or set of tasks. HR professionals who have the business acumen to contribute to business strategy at the highest organizational levels are leading the shift in the HR profession from administrators to strategic advisors. A skill is the ability, talent or competence to perform a task well or better than average (Henry, C 2008).

Recruitment:

is a vital function of human resource management, which can be defined as the process of searching the right talent and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization. It is the process of discovering the sources of personnel to meet the requirements of the staffing agenda and attracting the adequate number of employees, as to be able to make the effective selection among the applicants. According to Castello (2006) recruitment is described as the set of activities and processes used to legally obtain a sufficient number of qualified people at the right place and time so that the people and the organization can select each other in their own best short and long term interests.

Decision making:

is the process of selecting one of multiple options based on their true or professed utility. In other words, decision makers must weigh up the probability and compare possible outcomes at different points in time hence decision making is the procedure of making a choice between different numbers of options and committing to a future course of actions. Decision making is a process of decision selection from available alternatives against the chosen criteria for a given decision goal. Decision making is the study of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values and preferences of the decision maker. Making a decision implies that there are alternative choices to be considered, and in such a case there is need not only to identify as many of these alternatives as possible but to choose the one that best fits with our goals, objectives, desires, values, (Harris 1998).

LITERATURE REVIEW:

To start with worldwide organizations are pulled in of the core focus benefits of the business in India because of low fee this bring down wearing down rates. The labour cost as compared to India were assessed with be around one-tenth for that in the USA; this might have been viewed likewise continuously moderately cheap, same time wearing down might have been more level both due to the starting allure Furthermore incentives of a new sort of an occupation and the altogether easier amount from claiming call focus organizations toward (Watson et. Al. 2000). In addition, employments were advertised basically on new graduates during pay levels higher in the years, those exercises need increased and included upkeep about customer’s relations building affinity with those company, Telesales, and so forth throughout this way, observing and stock arrangement of all instrumentation may be en. Additionally, for those expanded outsourcing by worldwide companies, Indian workers required to fill in throughout night hours to correspond for those benefits of the business hours of the USA and the UK. Attempting night shifts prompted passionate stress Also ailments for example, resting disorder, depression, physiological and mental issues. These factors bit by bit place weight on the employees, bringing about the issue from claiming expanded Worker wearing down.

The term employee attrition (also known as Labour turnover) it is the rate at which manpower move out of the organization. Employee attrition leads to an immense monetary effect on the organization, both to immediate What's more backhanded costs. On account for ITES industries, An withdrawing representative might need those discriminating aptitudes necessary to attempting for particular abilities over An provided for zone in the organization, finishing a venture in a critical process, alternately doing an undertaking to an undertaking which will have An more amazing sway on the wind effect of the association (Callaghan and Thompson 2002).

The greatest issue confronted Toward ITES associations over India today may be the expanded representative attrition, which varies between 25%-50%. Wearing down in the voice business may be secondary over the globe. Those new challenge confronting those Indian ITES division is convey worth Also climb the worth chain. The greatest challenge the ITES is facing is the skills requirement for the employees in this sector because the skills requirement are rapidly changing. (Watson et. Al. 2000). Not only does wearing down hamper the development from claiming business, has it also made an organization for no quality. Society building will be incomprehensible Also that once more is a standout amongst those reasons the reason there may be such secondary wearing down. It is a vicious circle and the biggest problem in this sector.

Different estimates recommended that losing a centre administrator in practically organizations, interprets it as a misfortune for up to five times as much that loss. This may make more awful to ITES organizations the place new ability intensively prepared Also inducted et cetera further groomed of the progressive phases. To guarantee that attribution rates would held will An base business compelling reason will update their reward Also engagement bundles to help those segment hold onto staff Also on find the correct sort of people who keep pace for the interesting fill in examples (Nakkiran S; John Franklin D, 2005).

Tedium low wind jobs, physical and mental issues Furthermore insufficient development chances are those real reasons cited for the secondary wearing down rate. This hindrance need expanded the operating expenses for BPO associations and may be recognized to be a danger of the segment. BPO associations sooner paid gigantic salaries should draw in an extensive amount about workers. However those huge bundles Also complex fill in earth in BPOs succeeded will pull in an expansive pool about youngsters, they fizzled with manage those pod. And the motivations go from physiological fatigue, mental anxiety to dread of a subtle future (Callaghan and Thompson 2002). It may be an actuality that, maintenance of key representatives is basic of the long haul wellbeing Furthermore victory for at whatever association. Those executions for workers are often connected straightforwardly to nature work, client satisfaction, and expanded item offers furthermore actually of the picture of the agency. Inasmuch as the same may be frequently in a roundabout way joined to, fulfilled associates also reporting weight staff, compelling progression arranging a profound inserted authoritative information and taking in. Representative maintenance matters, as, authoritative issues for example, preparation period and investment, those liabilities from claiming nomination scan and so forth throughout this way, observing and stock arrangement of all instrumentation may be necessary this is included. Hence, neglecting on hold a key representative is an exorbitant proposition to any ITES association (Attrition in the BPO, 2007).

The alternate fascinating finding that rose up out of former scientists What's more centred gathering meetings taken to pilot review is that lessening wearing down of employees might not continuously imply expanding maintenance. Wearing down employees might decrease whether the negative qualities of the work are taken mind about. However, that doesn't demonstrate workers increment their readiness with sit tight in the same association. Thus, separate set from claiming Components developed to wearing down What's more maintenance individually. Taking a gander at those enormous picture of the substantially acknowledged possibility of the BPO segment done India and the looming curse of wearing down employees in this sector, it make one to observe that the issue can't a chance to be overlooked (Singh et al, 2009). There may be desperate need for handling the issue for wearing down employees in the ITES segment in India and for this HR Analytics need been decided similarly as a successful operation. There may be need to create a simultaneous vital method, an inventive and proactive improvement standard a chance to be used with control the ever-increasing attrition rate in the ITES division eventually Tom's perusing upgrading those nature of the workers who are recruited of the ITES segment with location those present issue in this segment.

HR professionals who have the business acumen to contribute to business strategy at the highest organizational levels are leading the shift in the HR profession from administrators to strategic advisors. Those HR professionals who understand the language of business, who speak in financial terms and who express the value of their work in relation to its impact on the bottom line make HR a compelling component in strategy discussions (Ahmad Saufi, 2008). The utilization of resources is being shifted from current capital strategic resources to strategic resources in the form of information, knowledge, creative thinking and innovation. Skills and knowledge belong to critical factors of operations. Enterprises can gain competitive advantage by implementing continual and on-going innovations, managerial skills and knowledge are in the centre of this process of innovations and skills required for the effective performance of IT employees.

Essential skills for IT professionals :

i. Alliance and vendor management experience.

ii. Business knowledge and the willingness to take risks

iii. Consulting and partnering skills

iv. Strong technology and Internet skills

v. The ability to meet challenges where they are and the confidence to “mix it up” with clients

Adaptability/ Flexibility to change:

The ability to shift one’s views to smoothen the situation and people is a real life component of HR skills. To be a god leader and professional, one should have the flexibility to change and tune oneself according to various changes in the environment (Truss and Gill, 2009). It is the ability to match oneself with the people, things, ideas etc. One need to remember that what’s best for an individual might not necessarily be best for the organization or team hence it requires the HR managers to be acclimatized to different situations at work place.

Decision making in a group:

The ability to make better decision is a critical skill, especially when other people are involved in decision process and also decision implementation has an influence on others. It needs a skill to arrive at a decision by sorting it out to a win-win approach. This is a basic skill and demands a better understanding of the self and people (Branine, 2008). Managers in the organization need to implement a decision in a group of individuals this is also another area which needs consideration in decision making skill for a manger at the individual capacity as well as in a group.

Technology Skills:

The landscape of technology is rapidly changing and there are five major trends driving this change: social, mobility, Analytics, cloud and wearable’s. These trends have had major impact on talent. Take the case of social media, which now plays an important role right from recruiting to talent. Take the case of social media, which now plays an important role right from recruiting to talent development; and I today’s world with more employees joining the workforce, it is important for organizations to be attuned to this new reality of the technology and skills requirement of it manpower (Brown et al., 2003). Significant advancements in technology continue to free HR from the administrative role, providing more opportunity to focus on strategy. Increasingly uniform standards for systems language are being created, in large part, to enable companies to “plug to play” without major systems conversions (International labour office, 2010). Even small companies could access sophisticated HR solutions through such developments. The ability of manager to use specific methods and techniques in doing the managerial work; however these technical skills are not related to technology, such as skills of engineer. The technical skills for managers represent the usage of methods like break even analysis in planning or ability to prepare for and conduct a structured interview. HR professionals need to develop a proficiency in broad HR applications and their potential delivery systems. They ought to be able to apply this knowledge to the business planning process (Fallows and Steven, 2000).

Interpersonal skills:

Interpersonal skill is most valuable resource of any enterprise and IT employees needs to know how to use interpersonal skill to lead employees. The abilities include motivation of workers, solving work conflicts, communication and working with people. Therefore interpersonal skills are essential on every level of management (Cox and King, 2006). It will enable one to reduce conflict and increase participation in teams for completing tasks effectively. This would help to improve the productivity on organizations with least conflicts. Productive, successful, fulfilled people in careers that encompass all intellectual disciplines and majors have the ability to nurture and develop successful and satisfying relationships in the working environment (Jackson, D.2010). Effective employees are skilled in understanding other people and they are curious about the issues such as; what motivates individuals, how they think, how they feel, and prepares themselves to work cooperatively and productively with other employees inside and outside organization. Effective managers are excellent communicators and possess effective relationship skills such as active listening, empathic communication and assertive responding.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

1. To assess the new employee skills set and competence required during recruitment decision making process in IT sector.

2. To enumerate the benefits an organization derives by improving employee’s skills in IT sector.

3. To identity the new employee skills required in the IT sector

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The present study is designed as a descriptive research design based on primary data and secondary data. Descriptive research includes surveys and fact finding enquiries of different kinds. The population of the study includes the Human Resource managers working in the IT sector. The respondents in the study are HR managers who are working for IT companies located in Bangalore city which is referred as Silicon Valley of India.

A structured questionnaire was the main tool used for collecting primary data. It enabled the researcher to collect quantitative data in a standardized way so that the data is internally consistent and coherent for analysis. Also the questionnaire ensures standardization and comparability of the data across interviewers, increases speed and accuracy of recording, and facilitates data processing. The researcher approached 110 respondents of HR manager in IT sector Bangalore city for those organizations utilizing HR Analytics for their recruitment decision making. The scaling techniques used in the development of questionnaire that is used in this study is: nominal scale, Likert type scale under interval scale, itemized rating and rank-order scale under ordinal scale and word association under disguised structured scale.

The secondary data related to this study was collected from different sources including text books, articles published in journals, news papers, periodicals, doctoral research thesis National Association of Software Companies (Nasscom) websites, Mckinsey study reports company websites and various other related sites.

Analysis and Findings:

To satisfy the first objective the researcher approached it in three phases. The first phase is studied using past skill sets required, Second phase studies present skills required and finally the researcher analyze responses about required skill sets to adopt in employee recruitment in future. Before going further, the researcher asserts the difference between the responses so as to choose a most important skill set based on the responses. Following tables summarize Friedman’s test conducted to verify the difference among responses. The first table no: 1.1 summarizes the test conducted on responses of past skill sets. According to the Friedman’s test the responses differ significantly from each other and there is a provision to identify the most important skill set.

Test Statistics^a

N	110
Chi-Square	21.637
df	7
Asymp. Sig.	.003
a. Friedman Test

Next table no: 1.2 presents the result of Friedman’s test on responses about present skill sets. According to the test results the responses are significantly different from each other.

Test Statistics^a

N	110
Chi-Square	72.528
df	8
Asymp. Sig.	.000
a. Friedman Test

Since for both the skill sets the responses are significantly different, we present the summary of responses in the following table.

First the researcher present the summary of responses for Past skill sets that is necessary for employees in IT sector. According to the table, most important skill is Team working Skill and the least important skill is Language skills. Following are the past skill sets arranged according to the decreasing order of their importance.

i. Team working skill.

ii. Information technology skill.

iii. Literacy.

iv. Problem Solving Skill.

v. Adaptability/Flexibility skill.

vi. Trade/Process Skill.

vii. Communication Skill.

viii. Language Skill.

Table No: 1.1 Past skill sets

Past Skill Sets.	Very Important		Important		Moderately Important		Of little Importance		Unimportant
Literacy	19	17.3%	63	57.3%	21	19.1%	5	4.5%	2	1.8%
Language Skill	22	20.0%	49	44.5%	31	28.2%	4	3.6%	4	3.6%
Trade/Process Skill	23	20.9%	51	46.4%	25	22.7%	8	7.3%	3	2.7%
Problem Solving Skill	41	37.3%	36	32.7%	23	20.9%	6	5.5%	4	3.6%
Communication Skill	20	18.2%	51	46.4%	29	26.4%	6	5.5%	4	3.6%
Information Technology Skill	30	27.3%	58	52.7%	16	14.5%	4	3.6%	2	1.8%
Adaptation/Flexibility Skill	32	29.1%	40	36.4%	28	25.5%	6	5.5%	4	3.6%
Team Working Skill	41	37.3%	52	47.3%	12	10.9%	4	3.6%	1	0.9%

Table No: 1.2 Present skill sets

Present Skill Sets	Very Important		Important		Moderately Important		Of little Importance		Unimportant
Analytical Skill	39	35.5%	58	52.7%	9	8.2%	3	2.7%	1	0.9%
Technical Skill.	51	46.4%	36	32.7%	21	19.1%	1	0.9%	1	0.9%
Administrative Skill.	29	26.4%	40	36.4%	30	27.3%	9	8.2%	2	1.8%
Interpersonal Skill	26	23.6%	39	35.5%	35	31.8%	9	8.2%	1	0.9%
Leadership Skill	21	19.1%	47	42.7%	35	31.8%	6	5.5%	1	0.9%
Conceptual Skill.	21	19.1%	50	45.5%	27	24.5%	10	9.1%	2	1.8%
Computer Skill	29	26.4%	49	44.5%	24	21.8%	6	5.5%	2	1.8%
IT Skill	26	23.6%	58	52.7%	20	18.2%	4	3.6%	2	1.8%
Numeric Skill	16	14.5%	31	28.2%	48	43.6%	13	11.8%	2	1.8%

i. Statistics Skill.

ii. Programming Skill.

iii. Creativity Skill.

iv. Information and Communication Technology Skill.

v. Data visualization Skill:

Since the responses differ significantly it may be conclude that agreement of respondents on a particular new skills set will be required more than others. Therefore the summary presents the responses. Based on the responses it may be concluded that Statistics Skill is very important of all skills and Data visualization skill is least important. The following is a list of new skills that are required for recruitment decision making process in ITES. The skills are arranged in decreasing order of the agreement of respondents.

Findings:

1. The finding of the study clearly indicate that employee’s new HR skills set are necessary to be utilized in effective recruitment process in the IT sector, skills like data visualization skill and programming skills are important.

2. IT companies have to select employees with statistics, creativity and programming skills bring them together to work on HR data visualization during recruitment process.

3. For recruitment program to be successful, it ought to be led by the right professionals with the right analytical skills. Such leaders have to able to manage the changes in recruitment process, behavior and capabilities caused by change in skills initiative in the organization.

4. The present HR skill sets are also required in the employee recruitment process skills such as analytical and administrative skills.

5. Past skill sets are still of the important use to the recruitment process this includes team working skills, problem solving skills and information technology skills to make better recruitment decisions in IT sector.

Managerial Implications:

Constructive managerial insights can be drawn from this study. The following are some of the insights derived from this study. Research findings clearly demonstrate that senior HR executives are well aware that they can increase the efficiency of recruitment through utilizing the new HR skills during the process of recruitment in organisations. The organization should identify the strategic value and competitive advantage that they need to gain through data visualization in HR planning of manpower demand. The dynamic effects of time delays, feedbacks, and lags can be investigated from a systems viewpoint to ensure recruitment decisions are made faster with efficiency using the present and past skills to predict the future recruitment needs in the IT sector. The interactive effects of dynamic variables of recruitment adjustments can be envisioned on based on the needs of the time since the HR skills keeps changing to suit the requirement of time.

CONCLUSION:

In the present competitive labour market the IT sector, especially of the developing economies like India, is facing lot of tough competition, talent crunch, and skill shortage. All these have made the ITES feel that the permanent employees are also more important equally the temporary employees, therefore every organization is trying to devise innovative HR practices to attract best talent and give them comfortable environment to work in, this will enable the IT firms to retain their employees. The organization are planning, acquiring the right manpower, retaining, developing the employees, managing employees exit from the organization. There is no need to emphasise that it is the employees and only employees who make an organization achieve competitive advantage in the present tough and competitive technology world. The employees (Human Resources) in an organization, when looked after well and provided with enough skills and motivation, will certainly pay back in terms of better results, better performance and enhanced productivity (Kundu and Malhan, 2009). Therefore, the main focus of the present study was on understand the new HR skills set required to make effective recruitment decision in the ITES so as to reduce attrition rate in the IT sector.

Scope for future studies:

The quest for knowledge is never-ending. For the purpose of this study only IT companies in Bangalore city has been taken for the sample, but the same research can be carried on by taking more number of units in other cities of India to make comparisons among the cities, by taking different units belonging to different sectors to make inter sector comparisons, further by taking units of different countries to find out interregional, inter country , intercontinental differences if any or by taking industries of different sizes to compare HR practices in the units/firms of different sizes etc. Future research can be conducted by expanding the horizon of the aspects or by using different methodologies and techniques. In this research the researcher has used the HR managers to gather the data the subsequent research the researcher can use employees to analysis the HR skills required for recruitment decision in ITES for employee point of view.

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Received on 26.03.2018 Modified on 11.04.2018

Asian Journal of Management. 2018; 9(2):954-960.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2018.00151.8

New skills Sets	Strongly Agree		Agree		Neither agree nor disagree		Disagree		Strongly disagree
Programming Skill	29	26.4%	67	60.9%	6	5.5%	4	3.6%	4	3.6%
Statistical Skill.	48	43.6%	49	44.5%	9	8.2%	2	1.8%	2	1.8%
Data Visualization Skill	23	20.9%	49	44.5%	31	28.2%	4	3.6%	3	2.7%
Information and Communication Skill	19	17.3%	64	58.2%	22	20.0%	1	0.9%	4	3.6%
Creativity Skill	35	31.8%	52	47.3%	16	14.5%	4	3.6%	3	2.7%