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NAC - NASSCOM’S Assessment of Competence

An industry Assessment and Certification Standard for creating ‘assessed and benchmarked’ quality talent-pool

Presented by NEDP – NASSCOM’s Executive Development Program and managed by Hewitt Associates, India

1. About NAC – NASSCOM Assessment of Competence
2. Approach Taken
3. Overview of the Model
4. Skill Competence – Testing themes
5. Benefits for the industry
6. Benefits for Job Aspirants
7. Benefits for Training Companies
8. How Stat Governments can participate?
9. Frequently Asked Questions

About NAC – NASSCOM Assessment of Competence

The Indian ITES-BPO industry is growing at a tremendous pace. India’s biggest competitive advantage is the educated English-speaking talent pool, and hence it is also imperative that we have sustainable workforce development initiatives in place for the longer term. The industry, under the aegis of NASSCOM, is looking at ways and means to ensure that the future of this industry is even brighter. Proactive workforce development is becoming a major requirement for the Indian ITES-BPO sector.

NASSCOM is following a multi-pronged approach to facilitate manpower development for the short and long term. By following a three phase strategy, NASSCOM is aiming to build a base of ITES-BPO manpower which will be certified, in tune with the needs of the industry and geared up for the future requirements of the sector.

In Phase I of this initiative, NASSCOM is looking at creating an Assessment and Certification program which becomes an industry standard and ensures the transformation of a "trainable" workforce into an "employable workforce. In this phase, NASSCOM in association with Hewitt Associates and through extensive industry participation is building an Assessment and Certification framework.

Approach Taken

Hewitt Associates, on behalf of NASSCOM, conducted in-depth meetings with close to 35 players in the ITES-BPO industry to understand the current recruitment practices, attrition skills required etc. Based on this a job-skill matrix was developed which formed the basis for the design of this assessment program.

Core and Working Committees from the industry were formed and constant interactions were made to make sure that the program has everything that the industry requires in terms of a pre-employment assessment. An evaluation committee was set-up to finalize the vendors and decide on the approach to the pilot.

NASSCOM, after a detailed evaluation process, have selected two vendor combinations to help them with content and technology to run the pilot. ePredix and CareersIndia will together conduct the first pilot program, and British Council and AON Consulting will carry out the second. Selected companies from the industry identified by NASSCOM will partner in the deployment of the pilot program. The locations for the first stage of pilot have been identified as NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Skill Competence – Testing themes

Benefits for the industry

NASSCOM Assessment of Competence will help industry to create an assessed and certified talent workforce to cater their needs. Some of the key benefits will be as follows:

1. A national standard for recruitment of entry level talent
2. Substantial cost savings in industry’s sourcing cost
3. Ease of benchmarking for individual processes with industry standards
4. Ability to create visibility and reach out to a larger audience
5. Ability to filter out non-serious candidates and hence improved efficiency
6. Cost savings through cutting off steps from the recruitment process resulting in reduced cycle time and more efficient utilization of resources
7. Cost savings through reduced training hours in full blown operation

Benefits for Job Aspirants

For a job aspirant in the ITES-BPO industry, NAC will provide following benefits:

1. A common, transparent process across companies in the ITES-BPO sector
2. No need to go through the same recruitment process at different companies
3. Ability to identify his/ her strengths and weaknesses
4. Ability to self-assess his/her training needs
5. Opportunity to get certified on a national level under NASSCOM

Benefits for Training Companies

A robust training backend framework is necessarily required to make any assessment successful, which also holds true for NASSCOM Assessment of Competence. There is a need to align this assessment in a manner that it helps the industry with assessment and recruitment of right talent; and also provides training need inputs to the candidates and to the training firms. Also, Educational Institutions and Universities can work to align the curriculum to the changing industry trends on the basis of this assessment.

The key tenets for this alignment are:

• The central Assessment of candidates will be a filtering criterion for employers and a training need assessment for candidates

• The candidates will be advised specific training modules as a part of the result as per their shortcomings

• The employers will provide incentives to candidates to come through this assessment

• Over time the intent is that the industry should hiring only candidates who come through this assessment

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