Human Resource Community

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to upskill the technical workforce at the Department of Space (DOS). The initiative would establish a formal framework for short-term courses that will provide training for the skill development and capacity building of ISRO technical professionals in India’s space sector, in accordance with industry requirements. Around the next five years, over 4000 ISRO technical staff would be taught under the programme. The training will take place at the National Skill Training Institutes (NSTI) in Bangalore, Chennai, Calicut, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, which are all run by MSDE. The training program’s goal is to improve the technical skills of diverse technical professionals working in ISRO centres and units under DOS. MSDE’s state-of-the-art training institutes across the country will provide training in specialised disciplines to improve employees’ skill sets in line with the latest industry trends and requirements. According to the MoU, ISRO will collaborate with MSDE and the affiliated NSTI to develop a detailed training calendar, curriculum, and syllabus to meet the program’s larger goals. ISRO would give the participants with their training equipment. MSDE will establish labs, workshops, classrooms, specimens, and other training facilities in cooperation with the Capacity Building Programme Office (CBPO) to efficiently carry out the programme at identified NSTI. MSDE will be in charge of the program’s overall management and complete supervision in order to ensure its successful execution. “These training programmes will enable technical personnel to embrace and augment cutting-edge technology, thereby elevating India’s standing in the space domain,” said Rajesh Aggarwal, secretary, MSDE. The MoU was signed by Rajesh Aggarwal, secretary MSDE and S. Somanath, secretary Department of Space/ Chairman ISRO, in the presence of TVLN Rao, RD, RDSDE, Karnataka; Kumarvel, DD, RDSDE, Karnataka; Parveen Kumar, DD, DGT; C Ravi, director, CFI, DGT; Manish Gupta, assistant director, MSDE; N. Sudheer Kumar, director, CBPO, ISRO; and Nishant Kumar, deputy director, ISRO. The same will be valid for a period of five years.

Bentley Motors’ Five-in-Five plan calls for the company to introduce a new electric vehicle (EV) model per year starting in 2025. It will hire 100 engineers and push its Beyond100 strategy to achieve this. The hiring process has already begun, with 50 job openings announced so far, with more to come in the near future. While the new workers will be assigned to a variety of departments, including engineering and research and development, around half of them will be required to focus on electrical skills, as Bentley plans to electrify its entire product range within eight years. Bentley will need personnel in research and development, as well as UX/UI engineers, design managers, and chassis engineers, in addition to electrical engineers. While the majority of the new workers will work out of Bentley’s Crew headquarters, the luxury carmaker plans to use a hybrid work style. It has made significant investments in new engineering offices, which incorporate collaboration zones to encourage interaction. Individual offices have been eliminated in favour of hot desks in order to conserve space. This is also anticipated to foster spontaneous conversations as well as improved teamwork and attitude. Bentley wants its employees to be more adaptable, lifelong learners, and active participants in the workplace. Bentley employees have participated in over 30,000 learning activities in the last year, including online workshops, e-learning modules, and face-to-face

SuperBot, an intelligent, AI-powered voice assistant SaaS startup, has announced a 300 percent increase in staff. It’s on the lookout for people to work in marketing and sales, operations, technology, customer success, and HR. The majority of the new hires will be situated in Gurugram, the company’s headquarters. The Company plans to increase its staff to 200 by the end of the fiscal year 2022-23, from its existing workforce of 55. SuperBot plans to onboard 20% of new candidates for senior level positions in addition to the hiring push. Half of the remaining positions will be for mid-level positions, and 30% will be for entry-level positions. This addition of new talent to the workforce, according to Sarvagya Mishra, co-founder and director of SuperBot (PinnacleWorks), “will bring new skill sets to the table. We understand that the market is very challenging for talented professionals right now, and this may actually be an opportunity to acquire skilled manpower, which will strengthen the Company’s backbone for a longer run”. The brand is offering its employees the freedom to explore the profiles they want to thrive in, thanks to an employee-first approach and an open culture policy. Regular appreciations and acknowledgements have been driving the working atmosphere at SuperBot, along with flexible scheduling and leave policies. The Company ensures that everyone has the opportunity to discuss what they believe should be changed or added to make it the best place to work in the industry by using a reverse feedback method. SuperBot, an AI-powered voice agent technology that was founded in 2012, has been an enabler for a variety of industries, including education, BFSI, healthcare, and so on.

Despite getting an eviction notice, Air India employees refuse to leave their company-provided housing, claiming that they intend to stay in their flats till retirement unless alternate arrangements are made. Employees who were dissatisfied with the government’s attempt to force them to surrender their flats staged a protest march. The Mumbai International Airport of the Adani Group issued the eviction notice (MIAL). Hundreds of Air India employees, including engineers, ground staff, and other professionals, were required to vacate 1600 staff quarters in Kalina when the company was privatised. Air India gave these employees six months to vacate their houses, which were handed to them in lieu of a house rent allowance and are conveniently placed near the airport, in 2021. Despite the infamous Mumbai traffic snarls and severe rains during the monsoons, the staffs are only able to make it to the airport on time for duty because of the close proximity to the airport. During the lockdown, the help and cooperation of these personnel located near the airport was also crucial, since they were the ones working with cargo aircraft bringing medications and protective equipment both within and outside the country. The initial lease on these quarters expired over 30 years ago and has not been renewed since then, making them nearly seven decades old. The land on which they were constructed is owned by the Maharashtra government and was leased to the Airports Authority of India (AAI). It was then leased to MIAL, which is now a subsidiary of the Adani Group.

CoinDCX, an Indian cryptocurrency firm, has managed to raise $135 million in funding. The money will be used to create a scalable web 3.0 product ecosystem. It intends to triple the size of its current workforce. That means it will have at least 1,000 employees by the end of the year. The cryptocurrency trading exchange, which only started four years ago, has joined the unicorn club and is now one of the most valuable companies in the cryptocurrency space. The Mumbai-based firm intends to focus on and expedite local hiring, and has launched a number of research efforts, outreach programmes, and strategic investments in this regard. Engineers, product developers, and compliance specialists will be hired. The company currently employs 400 people, with plans to expand to roughly 1,000 by the end of 2022. The startup currently has 12 million registered users, which is four times the 3.5 million people who signed up till August 2021. Pantera and Steadview led the recent funding round, which was also joined by Kingsway, Republic, Kindred, and DraperDragon. Coinbase, Polychain, B Capital Group, and Cadenza are among the existing investors who have increased their investments. CoinDCX, founded in 2018 by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal, facilitates the buying and selling of crypto tokens, as well as lending and other crypto-enabled financial services. Coinbase announced earlier this month that company wants to hire more than 1,000 individuals by 2022. Clearly, investors are optimistic about the future of cryptocurrency.

Idea2IT, a Silicon Valley-based IT firm with a delivery centre in Chennai, has given 100 Maruti Suzuki cars to its employees as a token of appreciation for their hard work and loyalty. The models include the S-Cross and the Baleno, for which the company has spent approximately Rs 15 crore. Ideas2IT maintains that this is not an attempt to retain people solely because the company has a 2.5% attrition rate, but rather a way to express gratitude to its employees and demonstrate that it values their hard work and contribution to the company’s success. The company, which has a delivery centre in Chennai, decided to share its success and profits with all employees who have worked for the company for at least ten years, regardless of role. Murali Vivekanandan, founder and chairman of Ideas2IT, believes that the company’s loyal and deserving employees have earned these cars. While this is the first time the employees have received cars, the Company is known for sharing its wealth and success with its employees. Employees have previously received gold coins and iPhones as gifts. The company began as a consulting firm with a small team of six engineers and has since expanded to a 500-person workforce. It has offices in several countries, including India, Mexico, and the United States. Its clients include Microsoft, Facebook, Motorola, Bloomberg, Oracle, and Roche, and it has experienced rapid growth in the last four years.

UpGrad, an edtech firm, announced on Thursday that it has integrated all of Talentedge’s business, which will now operate under its own brand, after its owner, Sekhsaria Family Office, acquired a $2 billion stake in the company. UpGrad stated in December of last year that it will acquire Gurugram-based edtech rival Talentedge for Rs 350-400 crore. The near 100 percent share swap transaction was done at an upGrad value of $2 billion, while Talentedge was valued at Rs 205 crore. According to the company, Talentedge is on track to achieve a gross revenue of Rs 150 crore in the coming fiscal year. “Talentedge integrated inside upGrad will be a formidable combination that will be very value accretive for both,” said Narayanan V who leads private investments at Sekhsaria Family Office, owner of Talentedge. For degree programmes, Talentedge has partnered with leading universities. “The coming together of Talentedge with upGrad cements our leadership position in India’s lifelong learning market and we see great synergies, cost savings and our ability to scale and consolidate,” said Mayank Kumar, cofounder and MD, upGrad. UpGrad was founded in 2015 and now boasts a learner base of over two million people from over 100 countries, as well as over 300 university partners. It has offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, the Middle East, India, Singapore, and Vietnam, as well as a presence in a number of other countries. Source: Economic Times

Tredence Inc, a leading data science solutions provider, today announced the opening of delivery centres in Bengaluru, Gurugram, and Chennai, which will be operational by May 2022 and have a total capacity of 1400 seats. Through the new delivery centres, the company will provide advanced analytics, data engineering, and data science solutions to retail, CPG, TMT, industrial manufacturing, and healthcare clients around the world. Tredence has been expanding its Bengaluru, Chennai, and Gurugram offices by hiring engineering graduates, lateral recruits, and domain specialists. In the last year, the company has doubled its talent pool and now employs over 1600 people. This year, the company expects to hire another 500 people, increasing the total number of employees to nearly 2100 by the end of the year. The new centres, which use a hybrid flexible work model, can accommodate approximately 1400 employees, making them the company’s largest employee base. “Expanding our reach into new talent markets is a critical component of our growth plan. We plan to do so by constantly looking for top-tier talent in new regions and partnering with premier institutes like IIT Madras to focus on training and talent development. Through ASTHA (our hire, train and deploy model), we assist employees specializing in legacy technologies to modernize by providing them with data science and data engineering opportunities. Opening new offices and extending our presence in Bengaluru, Gurugram and Chennai is making strides in these directions,” said Shub Bhowmick, chief executive officer and co-founder of Tredence. “Expansion and addition of new India delivery centres signifies an exciting chapter for Tredence as we continue to build ground-breaking data science solutions for global industries. Setting up new delivery and talent centres in India reflects the momentum we are experiencing in the market and aligns with our growth imperatives. Bengaluru, Chennai and Gurugram offer a perfect springboard for tech companies looking to strengthen AI innovation and distributed agile delivery models,” said Harish Gudi, chief operating officer of Tredence. Beyond Possible is the company’s new brand identity and strategy, which reflects the company’s new go-to-market strategy and increasing emphasis on vertical-specific data science solutions.

The dearness allowance (DA) for Central government employees is finally being amended after more than a year and a half of delay. Following ratification by the Union Cabinet, the DA will increase by 3% beginning April 1, 2022. As a result, the DA for Central government employees would now be 34% of their base income. The dearness allowance is the government’s approach of assisting its employees in coping with rising prices and protecting them from inflation’s negative impacts. Employees’ DA fluctuates based on whether they live in metropolitan areas, semi-urban areas, or rural India, since the effect of inflation varies from place to place. All Central government employees and pensioners would benefit from the increase in DA and dearness relief (DR). The rise follows the formula suggested by the Seventh Central Pay Commission, and it goes without saying that it will put more strain on the government’s finances. Every year, more than Rs 9,000 crore will be spent on DA and DR payments. Over 47 lakh Central government employees and 68 lakh retirees will benefit from this. This increase had been postponed due to the pandemic. After a long interval, the DA and DR for Central government personnel were raised to 28 percent in July of last year, up from 17 percent previously. In October of last year, another three percent increase was announced, bringing the DA and DR to 31% of basic salary.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has ordered that the state government’s outstanding 20 percent arrears under the Seventh Pay Commission be cleared. Employees will now get the amount due along with their March 2022 wages. Previously, the unpaid amount according to the Seventh Pay Commission slab was cleared to the tune of 80%. The remaining 20%, which was owing to the almost four lakh government employees in Odisha, will now be cleared as well. A total of Rs 850 crore has been set aside in the supplementary budget for 2021-22 to help cover this cost. Odisha’s government began implementing the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission in January 2016. As a result, starting in September 2017, employees began earning raises in their pay. It was determined that the employees would be paid a 20-month rise in arrears in instalments from January 2014 to August 2018. According to the arrangement made at the time, 40% of the increased pay was paid in 2016-17, 10% in 2019-20, and 30% in 2021-22. Pensioners have also been paid in full. The state government increased dearness allowance (DA) by 3% in December 2021, benefiting about 7.5 lakh employees and pensioners. Junior teachers’ pay in Odisha government elementary schools were also increased by 50% in January of this year.