Mediaboss Marketing

By Abhishek Sahu

The year 2020 has been momentous for our lives and hence as we usher in a fresh year in 2021, the expectations of IT organisations are very much different from how things have changed incrementally over the past few years.

According to Arun Dinakar Rao, Chief People Officer, Birlasoft, the workplace paradigm has seen a significant shift credit or critique to Covid-19. And this new workplace is there to stay! I believe that we would see more distributed workplaces with virtual teams working with leading-edge collaboration tools, he said.

Organisations would need to sharpen their technology backbone, productivity measurement frameworks and invest in enhanced cybersecurity measures, he said.

For Karthikeyan Natarajan, President & COO, Cyient, the impact of the turbulent 2020 on the management function is about bringing empathy with associates, customers, and at the same time customers looking at partners with similar graphs, and empathy in return.

He further said, I think it (pandemic) tested every walk of life in terms of your ability to make decisions faster, and your ability to use data and guts in a more equitable manner. It also led us to think about how we ensure that you balance the priorities between people and organisation.

Entire concept of performance management is likely to undergo a dynamic shift

With the world moving from a workstation to a WFH station, Ruth Aarthy Asha, Head - Human Resources and Business Partner, Maveric Systems, took the start of the pandemic as a period of great learning.

As we look towards the new year which hopefully will be post-Covid-19 dawn, we have been working towards a newer approach in preparing for the coming year. We continuously focus on the health and wellbeing of our associates, and as a result, looking for implementing workplace policies that will influence these initiatives, Asha said.

Technologies like Cloud, Blockchain, AI/ML will continue to be in demand, however, the ability to be self-directed, contribute via virtual teams and timely investment in physical and emotional wellness while striking a work-life balance will be considered paramount to thrive in these evolving times, he added.

Speaking of the must-have industry skills for 2021, Natarajan from Cyient said it's going to be about full-stack software development, being agile, and automation skills.

You may not see big large projects, but you should be able to really have the skills that can break the large projects into smaller chunks that you can execute in bit sizes. I think that could be a lot more in view in 2021, added Natarajan.

Link:
Pandemic tested the ability to use data & guts more equitably: IT Industry experts - ETCIO.com