Rajesh Athihalli has no problems with the term "finishing school". But, at a time when organisations with long experience of working in the HR sector, such as his, want to don the role of trainers to equip inexperienced work force with vital professional skills, he feels the term may not adequately reflect the approach many of them are adopting.
"The idea of a Finishing School may represent a divide between the more well-informed who need finishing and those who are not so well-informed who can't be trained," Mr Athihalli elaborated his view. "On the other hand, if you call such training "talent enhancement" that would mean all of them have talent and can extend it to make themselves employable."
Indeed, Mcube, the training academy Mr Athihalli's organisation, Metis ERC India, has started recently, calls itself `Talent Enhancement' school. After launching its soft-skills programme in Mysore, it is planning to offer it in Bangalore, Hubli and Mangalore, with an ambitious target of training around 3000 students in one year.
R&M Associates, the parent organisation of Metis, has been in the field of HRM (Human Resource Management) for the past 30 years. The organisation was one of the first to offer industrial relation services such as resolving lock-outs, helping companies meet with labour law compliances and retirement administration (such as managing PF accounts). This apart, they also have more than a decade of experience in recruitment services and deputing employees in their rolls to work for their clients.
Mr Athihalli, CEO of Metis, says despite training being a part of their comprehensive service, R&M felt the need to add value to it and started Metis as a separate training unit in 2006. "Here, we do training only on soft-skills," Mr Athihalli notes. "We also do consultancy for the companies on, for instance, aligning employees to their vision.
These are usually three to four year projects in which we try and re-focus employees according to the objectives of the company."
The consultation projects sometimes involve mapping of the whole organisation, identifying talent gaps and designing training programmes to plug them. And Mr Athihalli reiterates Metis has a wider focus as for training employees: "Thanks to our long years of experience, we don't work just with IT or ITES, but across industry."
Mcube, the talent enhancement school, has employability and identifying career path for new recruits as its objectives. It divides its training into life skills -in which students are taught time management and balancing work and life, interview skills - facing job interviews, tests/group discussions, preparing resume etc, and organisational skills - such as work ethic, roles/responsibilities and jelling with the team etc.
"The problem for most freshers who walk into a company is that they have little idea as to how they can manage these things," Mr Athihalli points out. "Especially work-life balance, working as a team and managing time - these are skills that can make or break an individual's career. So, learning them beforehand would help him/her perform better."
On the other hand, studies have suggested that companies could only find very few graduates meeting the criteria for work. Still worse, they have to spend hours testing and interviewing thousands of candidates to identify the few eligible ones. Given this scenario, Mcube sees itself as ideally placed to help both companies and fresh grads.
"We provide a single platform for both employers and students," Mr Athihalli says. "While employers can find the right candidate who can start work from day one, students would get a strong foundation for a successful career and the best company to work with."
For more details contact Metis at: Metis ERC (I) Ltd, L-9, Ist Main, HSR Sector - 6, Bangalore-560034.
Ph- 080- 25727457/58
www. metisindia.com
