With US Bureau of Labor statistics indicating that the average university graduate will change jobs 11 times by age 38 in this century, corporate, technical and other training is big business In today’s fast-paced world, in which new technologies — and entire industries — become rapidly obsolete, all professionals, technicians and workers need to constantly improve and upgrade, and often learn completely new skill-sets. US Bureau of Labor statistics indicate that the average university graduate will change jobs 11 times by age 38 in this century. Little wonder that within Indian industry — especially in new age industries such as telecom, finance, banking, insurance, outsourced operations, engineering design, R&D, manufacturing — corporate training is big business, and training, counseling and consultancy are becoming rewarding careers. Excellent communication — written and verbal — adaptability and inter-personal people management skills are the prerequisites of a career in training. As for academic qualifications, a non-technical trainer should be a graduate preferably with postgraduate specialisation in HR (human resources) and training, while a technical trainer should be a computer science or engineering graduate. Several certificate programmes — both Indian and international — are available for specialisation. For instance, the Delhi-based Indian Society for Training and Development (ISTD), a non-profit society, offers a diploma in training and development. Apart from this, business management programmes with specialisation in human resource management, offer training as a subject. In particular, the continuous growth of the IT-enabled services sector offers a plethora of career options for would-be training professionals. Specialisation options include customer service, telemarketing, technical support, domain specific and voice and accent training. An individual with technical competencies and good communication skills is well-qualified to become a technical trainer, for whom there is pressing demand in the software, hardware, automobile, and manufacturing, among other sectors. Since trainers help business enterprises improve organisation and employee productivity, they are very much in demand. Today, even the call centre industry offers numerous opportunities in training and often outsources productivity improvement assignments to training organisations and freelance trainers with requisite qualifications. The competition in HR and training is intense, but so is the potential for business. “The HRD (human resource development) and training industry is growing rapidly with training companies mushrooming countrywide. Most of them comprise individual professionals who have morphed into trainers in their domain areas. Moreover with the services sector contributing 55 percent of GDP, this sector of the economy is multiplying rapidly and compensation is comparable with the best in industry,” says Nandan Savnal, managing director of PeopleSys Pvt. Ltd, a well-reputed consulting and training company with “hundreds of clients” on its roster including HDFC, ACCOR group (owners of Novotel, Sofitel, Pullman, Mercure, Ibis), Johnson & Johnson etc. A commerce graduate of Mumbai’s well-known R.A. Podar College and a qualified chartered accountant, Savnal began his career in 1988 in the investment banking division of Standard Chartered Bank. But as he became increasingly aware of the importance of HRD and training to create continuously learning and high productivity business organisations,…
