Start-up Salary Seed Fund: A New Model of Skill development and Start-up Support for India

I have been a keen observer of the skill development initiatives that both the central as well as the State Governments run in different names. It is interesting to note that many of these initiatives are run by different departments in different manners, each catering to different needs in different names. Well, as far as the outcomes are met, we can hope that these initiatives are on track. But, is it actually meeting the objectives? Have we reached a stage where we can confidently say that at least 80% of the students and young professionals are employable? Even today, every year we get to read the decreasing figures of employment and employability despite the fact that we vehemently promote entrepreneurship and skill development. 

Let me share my own experience of running multiple start-ups and having interviewed at least 5000 candidates in the past decade for several of my clients as an HR Consultant. Most of the time, I realise that it’s not lack of skills that leads to denial of job. It’s actually lack of “matching skills”. Many times, we get candidates who apply for a post without even understanding how they can fit into the role. Secondly, in the case of fresh graduates, one of the key issues is their lack of soft skills and the right technological skills. And thirdly, many times, the employers only need someone with a bare minimum skill sets and learn-ability instead of someone with high level of specialised knowledge. Many start-up founders who are my clients ask this : “Can you please help me find someone with right attitude? I will train them” or “I just need someone with a willingness to join my team. I can train them, give them exposure. But I am not in a position to pay high salary since I am a start-up running on shoestring budget”. I also know of various bootstrapped start-up founders who struggle to balance their resource crunch and their funds. Some deny opportunities to freshers because they think its a wastage of time to train them by paying salary just to see that they leave the company in a few months. 

Coming to the candidates side, most of the candidates are literally confused about which job to choose and despite having creative capabilities they end up choosing or waiting for that MNC job which is ultimately working on a process. Many candidates do not prefer working for a startup because there is no guarantee that they can continue in that job or because the startups cannot pay decent salary. 

So, on one side, we have a large pool of semi –skilled talent sitting idle at home because they didn’t get a job in an MNC and on the other side, we have a pool of Start-ups who are struggling to find the right resource at cheap rates with their limited funds. Why don’t we connect these two segments and remodel the “Skill India” initiative? 

One of the key costs for any start-up is paying salaries to the employees. If a start-up can get right employees who can work and if their salary (if not full, at least a portion) is met by the Skill India Mission, it’s a clear win-win situation. The current model of skilling via Training Service Providers who find out beneficiaries randomly from schools and colleges and then trying to place them as interns in some place for a week and then leaving them with a certificate is not benefiting anyone. Instead, if the same funds can be given to the Start-up as a “Start-up Salary Seed Fund” for hiring freshers as interns / employees for a few months, it leads to two things

1.      The start-up survives with the indirect funding

2.      The students get skilled with hands on experience of working in start-up which is equivalent to getting a long term skill development program 

So, my proposal is this: Every Start-up India approved Start-up who have not received funding from investors shall become an authorised Training Service Provider of NSDC and they get financial support from NSDC / Skill India for every fresher hiring they make. This fund shall be used for the stipend / training of the candidate and they shall be employed for some minimum period with the start-up. 

Of course, this is similar to the apprenticeship act through which technical candidates are employed by big industries. But in most of these big industries, the apprenticeship act is just one of their liabilities and neither the employer nor the employee gains much. In the case of start-ups, this promotes both skill development as well as enables start-ups to sustain longer because ultimately it’s the human resource that’s the most crucial resource in the case of a start-up. 

I am putting this up here in my blog as an open proposal. Wish the concerned officials take this cue and develop this model for implementation.

#CeeVee

Mind your mind

If you want to know the culture of a society, watch their behaviour when they are in a group.  Several researches has shown that individual behaviour and group behaviour vary a lot in various contexts. People tend to become less inhibited when in a group than individually. So, as a group they are willing to forget their values and follow the crowd. One of my recent research is to study the comments of various articles that come in social media especially in articles about women. Earlier I used to read the articles and skip the comments. Now what's more interesting (rather disgusting) is reading the hundreds of comments below them. Firstly, many of the articles/ news have utterly misogynistic titles.Secondly the comments that follow them are written by hundreds of people (mostly men) who comment in full vulgarity abusing or literally verbally sexualising the woman.  Well, one read through these articles and their comments show the blatant misogyny that exists in our society. A decade back these vulgar comments /objectification washappening only in TV / Advertising and that too in a subtle manner. Today it’s happening in our social media and hence very accessible to everyone including children. And as I said in the beginning, most people forget their true self and end up commenting vulgarly just because the others have done so.I remember, I came to know the "F" word probably during my college days but kids as young as 7/8 yrs have started using this casually these days.And by the time they are teenagers, it becomes a norm. Well, it’s not just the "F" word but our kids are unfortunately exposed to really bad words in all languages and perverted vocabulary that's extremely common in social media.I don't think any parental control software or technology can prevent this pollution of mind.  Why kids, even adults are susceptible to this useless articles and their comment atrocities!We talk about environmental pollution, but are we aware of Mind Pollution? Are we aware that on a daily basis, we are in taking so much of scrap content that pollute our minds? Unfortunately, we end up sharing and getting addicted to these kinds of junk data even without our knowledge because, there are highly paid behavioural and linguistic experts thinking about how to get the audience “hooked” to the content.Now, how can we protect ourselves from this? Some people may suggest quitting from social media.But I wouldn’t recommend that since social media has various other benefits. But, what we could do are the following.

• Filter your Feeds – Subscribe to useful and positive content instead of junk content. Remember, 90 % of what comes in social media is junk which comes in the pretext of “valuable information”

• Declutter your subscription lists – We end up receiving hundreds of emails from unwanted sources just because we once visited their website. We have an option of unsubscribing. But we tend to forget the same.

• Never create / generate junk content – Every filthy comment or junk article that is generated by us adds to this pollution.

• Unfriend - Unfriend people who regularly comments vulgarly or uses sexist language on others posts. Remember, whom you associate with is your choice!

• Have a Social media detox time daily – Every day keep aside your mobile phones for at least one hour. You could find an interesting hobby or activity that you could do in that one hour.

• Meditate – Regular meditation helps in better stress management and overcoming the physical and mental discomforts of prolonged mobile usage

• Compensate - Compensate for mind pollution with nutrients ! Read more good books , be with nature . Interact with real people.

The aftermath of environment pollution is here already and in few years, we may be hit with the repercussions of Internet pollution unless we take immediate precautions. And as I mentioned in the beginning, the culture of a society is visible in every action of ours – be it offline or online.Just remember, what type of culture are you portraying or passing on to the next generation. Are we giving a positive and rich culture or a famished negative culture?

CeeVee 

Nov 2019