HCL Technologies: 2024 BEST Award Winner, #16

Generative AI helps this organization scale and create value while transforming business processes for efficiency and effectiveness.

The business plan pursued by India-based HCL Technologies is both succinct and emphatic: "to bring together the best of technology and our people to supercharge progress."

A global IT consultancy, HCLTech serves a business clientele that competes within their respective markets with fluid business models built on ever-shifting platforms and customer demands. Each must keep pace in today's digital-first world.

HCLTech addresses those needs with broad capabilities across the fields of digital, engineering, cloud, artificial intelligence, data and analytics, and custom and commercial application. The emergence of generative AI has further enhanced that landscape's vibrancy by creating new opportunities for organizations and entrepreneurs to prosper and for society to unlock the benefits of digital technologies.

Accessible and democratized learning

Supporting that concept is an entrenched culture of continuous learning and improvement aimed at helping employees navigate ever-changing business and technology trends. "Built on the broad tenets of opportunity, respect, and trusted employment, our employee value proposition emphasizes its commitment to help both current and prospective employees maximize their career potential and ambitions," according to the company.

Employees select from available career paths and use a platform for internal talent mobility—two critical elements aimed at meeting business needs and supporting talent retention. The strategy also keeps staff engaged and professionally oriented, all while boosting efficiency and reducing hiring costs.

"We firmly believe in establishing accessible and democratized learning pathways for our talent pool that also align with current and future business trends," says Vinutha Rao, senior vice president and global head of talent for HCLTech's digital business.

"Another key priority is to meet client needs by integrating \[generative\] AI into our service portfolio," she adds. "This integration enables us to deliver superior solutions and tailored customization for our clients. Concurrently, we are persistently enhancing our talent capabilities across various portfolio themes."

To accelerate capability building in next-generation technologies, HCLTech leverages various initiatives, such as innovation labs for practical experience and research through competency centers as well as by developing in-house products, deepening partnerships, and—most importantly—continuously innovating the talent development approach.

Central to that agenda is a TD function that receives full sponsorship from executive leadership. The team, comprising TD professionals and subject matter experts deployed across its extensive operations, actively engages in the initial phases of business planning and expansion, internal mobility, continuous learning, career advancement, and preparing the workforce for future challenges.

Learning journeys

The company initiated various TD programs that have resulted in notable cost savings, elevated proficiency levels among employees, and contributed significantly to reduced attrition rates.

One initiative is Aspire, a cross-skilling program that encourages employees to "supercharge their potential" by choosing and completing a curated personalized learning path while enabling and reinforcing a culture of continuous learning and upskilling.

Employees have the autonomy to select their desired career paths and acquire skills of their preference to remain relevant in the swiftly evolving technology landscape. Tailored journeys align with industry trends, internal skills demands, and future business needs. The program comprehensively covers training for both niche and highly sought-after skills such as generative AI, virtual data science, blockchain, analytics, and cloud computing.

Aspire encompasses more than 50 technologies and domain skills aimed at employees with two to 12 years of experience. Certifications, digital badges, and assured project opportunity await employees who complete the program with the right badge level. Rao says the initiative is vital for loyalty building for its valued workforce.

Upskilling

Another new initiative is Ramp-up @ Scale, a customized training program based on a role-level skills matrix followed by assessments and hackathons to help create a ready-to-deploy talent pool. Further, its Accelerated Competency Enhancement Program is designed to increase the competency levels of employees on current skill sets.

HCLTech finds hackathons to be a valuable tool for evaluating and selecting the right employees for deployment because the events demonstrate participants' problem-solving ability, collaboration, teamwork, technical skills, and learning agility. Clients evaluate employee performance and select the most suitable personnel based on demonstrated capabilities. The company has deployed more than 1,000 employees into customer projects through hackathons.

In addition, popular StepUp leadership programming for midlevel delivery managers upskills participants to become "ambassadors on digital skills and trusted consulting partners." The company reports that StepUp programs have upskilled more than 1,500 digital program managers who now work with top strategic accounts at Fortune 500 clients across the world.

Fulfilling demand through training

One critical business issue that HCLTech faced in 2023 was the high cost of hiring candidates with digital skills coupled with on-time deployment of appropriately skilled individuals in customer engagements. In response, the TD team identified employees who possessed adjacent skills and trained them on the requisite skills.

In cases where HCLTech lacked the required skills internally, it recruited candidates to fulfill its needs. Furthermore, it operates a dedicated Tech Academy aimed at onboarding and cultivating a pool of fresh talent. Individuals undergo training in high-demand digital skills, while existing employees receive skills upgrades for future deployment.

To mitigate the challenge of on-time deployment, the TD team proactively reskilled, upskilled, and cross-skilled employees on other in-demand skills. Year over year, the company reports that it accomplishes approximately 40 percent of demand fulfillment through training.

Says Rao: "These continuous learning initiatives are aiding us in optimizing talent costs for niche or special skill areas while simultaneously accelerating internal fulfillment, apart from improving our customer satisfaction."

View the entire list of 2024 BEST Award winners.