Digital and soft skills equally important for jobs of the future: Oracle

Says pace of skills transformation is slower than the pace of digital transformation in India, as is the case in several countries across the world

As digital skills remain centre stage among firms across the board, more so because of the pandemic, Oracle's Dynamic Skills, an artificial intelligence powered product, gives organisations tools to map their employees' talent in real-time.

"In a nutshell, imagine you will be able to understand the skills of your workforce, you will be able to understand where the gap exists and that really helps CHROs (chief human resources officers) create the plan for the future. Another key component of the Dynamic Skills is to ensure that we unleash the full power of AI, it's a very powerful tool...the most important tenet when we started building Dynamic Skills was to provide a digital experience for engaging with employees. Because engagement is going to be very successful in helping organisations understand how their employees are acquiring the skills," said Deepa Param Singhal, Vice President, Human Capital Management, Oracle Asia Pacific.

Oracle Dynamic Skills maintains a record of skills data within the organisation, including job titles, employee capabilities, experience, and strength of skills. A complete view of this data helps HR leaders foster career development, more effectively plan, make better hires, and develop a highly skilled workforce.

Given that India is increasingly an Internet or consumer-based economy, the first area of skills required across industries is data skills, given that post pandemic, the frequency with which businesses and consumer data has to be analysed has gone up by a very huge percentage, said Singhal. Other areas are cloud, big data, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.

To understand the skills and employee requirements better, Oracle partnered with research firm Workplace Intelligence to survey more than 12,000 employees, managers, HR leaders, and C-level executives across 11 countries. One of the key findings was that the Covid-19 pandemic has created the most stressful work year in people’s lives, negatively affecting the mental health of 78 per cent of the global workforce.

"There is an element of the care economy that is booming. Innovations in medical devices, wearables, point of care solutions that is becoming very evident," said Singhal. "The pandemic has resulted in

social and emotional skills like empathy, leadership and adaptability. These skills are also becoming key for organisations to acquire," she added.

Among notable customers of Oracle's Fusion Cloud HCM are Kotak Mahindra Bank, SBI Card, Tata Sky, Airtel, Genpact, Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, RBL Bank, AU Small Finance Bank, Uflex, Aster DM Heathcare, Mphasis and UST Global.

Dynamic Skills is a product within Fusion Cloud HCM, and will be available to customers and pricing will be "competitively placed within the market range".

"It is as much for the employees as it is for the organizations. There is a skills advisor, it helps employees to leverage the insights from the overall pool of resources and the consolidated data that we have to deliver recommendations. It also makes suggestions on what they should be doing next, based on AI. There is a personal supporter for employees where they may be updating their skills, find new roles and engage with resources. A listening centre is there which is absolutely a place where it’ll help organizations engage with their employees, engage with the workforce. And also, it makes it very easy for employees to track progress towards their career goals," added Singhal.

India's position was on the lower side according to Coursera's recently launched Global Skills Report, which found only 25 per cent Indian leaerners were proficient in data analysis. Overall, India's rank in the report was 67 globally, with 38 per cent proficiency. It ranked 55 in business and 66 in both technology and data science.

“The pace of skills transformation is slower than the pace of digital transformation in India, as is the case in several countries across the world. Learners must invest in both soft and technical skills to prepare for jobs of the future,” said Raghav Gupta, Managing Director - India and APAC, Coursera, at the time.  “The report indicates that the skills needed for high-demand entry-level roles can be developed in a matter of months, not years,” he added.

Oracle's Dynamic Skills is a step in that direction.