Imagemakeover

February 14, 2022February 18, 2022

What is Skill Mapping and Ways To Develop Skill Matrix?#CampusToCorporateSeries

In my previous post I have talked about How to develop job oriented skillset. In order to develop any skill it is imperative to understand the skills one needs to develop and for that very purpose we need to do skill mapping.

Skill mapping is similar to competency mapping the only difference is competency mapping is more in depth which includes things beyond skills, like behaviour. Skill mapping is a visual representation of the skills needed to perform well in any given role and comparing that with the existing skills. This comparison will allow to identify the gaps. Skills maps can provide a view of the entire team by showing the contributions and skills of each individual in the teams.

Need of Skill Mapping

Skill mapping will not only show the strength and weakness of a team but will benefit the company as a whole. Organizations and companies do this in order to get better clarity and insight about their employee’s skillset.

Skills mapping identifies which tasks and skills are crucial to the organization as only few employees can actually perform a certain task to a required level.
It helps in recommending what kind of training employee needs.
It can find the substitute candidate in case of emergency.
It allows tracking the progress of each team and individual.

Skill mapping benefits the team as the organization would know the skills required by the team before a project begins. It benefits the employee as they could identify their strengths and weaknesses and accordingly can train themselves. It benefits the company, as they know what skill sets they require and accordingly hire people. While doing skills mapping they could clearly see available skills and missing skills and empower their employees with required skills or hire people with skills which are needed to reach company’s goal. A team that is aware about their strengths and weaknesses can work on upgrading their skills and in turn company gets the benefits so the company benefits mean good news to the clients.

Skill Matrix

Skill mapping provides immense benefits and the best way to visualize proficiency level is by using the tool called Skill Matrix. A skill matrix is a snapshot of all the employees skills laid out in matrix form.

How to make Skill Matrix?

Create one skill matrix for each department or a team. List down names of all the employees and their role down the left hand column and all their skills across the top row. Then enter the proficiency levels for each employee for each skill until the matrix is filled. Measuring proficiency varies from organization to organization.

Firstly, it is important to determine what kind of skills are required for a particular project. This input will list down the competencies that you’ll assess the team members on.

Secondly, assess the team member on their current skill level.

Some organizations divides their capabilities in 4 group

No capability
Basic level of capability
Intermediate level of capability
Advanced level of capability

Some organization uses 5 point scale, to determine knowledge and experience of their employees

No experience or knowledge
Little experience or knowledge
Reasonable experience or knowledge
Considerable experience or knowledge
Expert experience or knowledge

Thirdly, the skills matrix may show that you have someone competent at a crucial task – but if the person is unwilling to perform the task, you will still hit a dead end. For each person, you’d want to know whether they have:

No interest in applying this skill or knowledge
Interested in applying this skill or knowledge

Lastly, incorporate all the information in the matrix and analyze.

You can find different types of skill matrix, so use what suits you the best or create one which works for you. Please find some of the examples below

For any project to be a successful it is important to make sure you have the right people and the right skills to start quickly and finish the job successfully. In such scenario the skills matrix, or competency matrix, is your best friend.

@ Swati Mathur

‘This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva andNoor Anand Chawla.’

February 7, 2022February 9, 2022

Mental Health Found A Place In Budget 2022 #MentalHealth #CauseAChatter

Being a mental health advocate, I was thrilled with the announcement of “Mental Health and R&D been given a top most priority in the budget 2022. Pandemic has taken a toll on the mental health, which is quite obvious when you look at these two prominent facts, one in four people are suffering from depression, while one in five are struggling with anxiety. And as pandemic continues , we might see things getting worse. Many of us are facing challenges that can be stressful, overwhelming and cause strong emotions. Public health measures that includes social distancing, lockdown, economic insecurity, school and business closure can make us feel isolated and lonely and can lead to severe depression and anxiety. And the worst part, is people are not even aware that they are suffering with some kind of mental health issues as they are unable to think beyond Covid 19.

In such a scenario government coming up with proposals like establishing National Tele Mental Health programme in India is considered as a boon.

What Is National Tele Mental Health programme ?

The National Tele Mental Health programme is launched to improve access to quality mental health counselling and care services which will consist of digital registries of health providers and health facilities, unique health identity, consent framework, and universal access to health facilities. Government has announced the creation of 23 tele-mental health facilities, with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, serving as the nodal center. Nimhans’ role is to conceptualize the programme, develop the training content, train the counsellors of centers of excellence and monitor the programme. The toll free number finds a mention in the health ministry’s website, the CoWIN portal and the counselling is available in 13 languages. More than 650 doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counsellors and psychiatric nurses working in government hospitals across India are involved in the helpline.

January 27, 2022February 9, 2022

How to Develop Job Oriented Skillsets #CampusToCorporateSeries

Today, people are no longer sticking to same kind of job throughout their life, therefore, career for life is no longer an option. Most people work under variety of employers and move across different industries. And how do they do this? They work on their job oriented skillsets.

What is a skill? A skill is an ability to perform an activity in a competent manner. The skill can be classified as transferable, based on personality traits and knowledge based skills.

What is a skillset? A skillset is a combination of abilities, qualities and experience you can apply to perform any task. Each person will have different skillset according to their interest, natural abilities, personal qualities and technical skills.

As an employability coach, I define employability as a set of skills that includes skills, understanding and personal attributes. A fresher is called to be employable if they posess all of these , that will lead to success in their chosen profession. These set of achievements will benefit themselves, the workplace, the community and the economy.

Most of the people are not just worried about getting the job but how can they be successful throughout their working life. This can only be achieved if they broaden their skill sets and attributes to fit into anything and everything by being more adaptable.

According to The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), employees should own 6 skill sets

Basic Competency Skills: includes reading, writing, computation skills
Communication Skills: includes listening and speaking skills
Adaptability Skills: includes problem solving and creative skills
Development Skills: includes goal setting, motivation, career planning skills
Group Effectiveness Skills: includes team work, negotiation and interpersonal skills
Influencing Skills: leadership and understanding organizational culture skills

January 21, 2022February 9, 2022

What is Conduct Disorder And How To Handle It ?#MentalHealth #CauseAChatter

Parents can be the biggest allies or worst enemies when it comes to dealing with children and adolescent. Their denial of their child’s mental health issues can complicates things and can worsen the situation. There are so many therapies available which kids or anybody who is suffering from mental health conditions can be benefitted from. But I see most of the times parents ignore the seriousness of the situation and write it off as defiant behavior, active imagination or they just hope their child will grow out of things such as torturing animals and setting fires. Denial is one of the defense mechanism and can be extremely unhealthy in the long run.

Conduct problems have become very common among students and adolescents in our society. And the reason could be many, to name a few

Nuclear Families
Working parents
Exposure
Social Media
Expectations
Competition
Nanny culture
Family history

But first it is important to understand what is Conduct Disorder?

Conduct Disorder is a mental condition. The behaviour goes beyond normal bullying to hurting people to Intensive disregard for societal norms and the rights, feeling, and personal space of other people. Children with conduct disorder are often difficult to diagnosed, as all kids act out sometimes. It is only when extreme behaviour shows up over a long period of time and isn’t caused by the child’s environment. And also if major age appropriate societal norms are violated or if their is a significant impairment in everyday functioning at home or school can be labeled as Conduct Disorder.

When we talk about normal behavior, it depends on the child’s age, character, and physical and emotional development. If their behaviour doesn’t match with family or societal expectations or is disruptive, it may become a problem. And that’s when intervention is needed.

January 16, 2022February 9, 2022

E-Commerce Contribution In Building Economy

Ecommerce has given a new dimension to economic growth and added more value to business and customers. I believe after the Industrial revolution the biggest development seen in the business world is the emergence of e-commerce which will revolutionize economic growth. The world is witnessing a digital revolution involving the internet and the use of websites all around the world has set the stage for e-commerce. Essentially this new economy is the digital economy that offers the most important facilities, the capacity to make transactions beyond the border, time, and space.

Ecommerce has enormous growth potential and is going to be the driving force of economic development. It is important to understand the true potential of e-commerce if we want to see structural change in our economy. Ecommerce has been there for the last two decades in some other form, be it fax, telephone, Tv, Electronic payment, electronic data interchange, money transfer system, etc. But the spread of the Internet has become the new forcer popularizing it. The internet provides access twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, anytime anywhere. Therefore, time and place are no longer a constraint.
Though E-commerce is built on the traditional business structure but offers the flexibility of electronic networks that led to improvement in operations and as a result substantial cost saving as well as increasing competitiveness and efficiency through redesigning of traditional business.

Recently we have witnessed many countries attaining a higher level of development. The reason behind this massive development is E-commerce, as it has given a new dimension to economic growth thereby creating a conducive environment for further development.

January 13, 2022February 9, 2022

How To Bring Up A Disciplined Child ?

Parents want the best in life for their children, a major part of their time and effort is directed towards their child. Children are always their priority and raising them in a healthy environment and taking good care of them is all that they could think of. Parenting is not inherent, it’s an art that has to be cultivated. Sometimes as a parent while dealing with our children, we tend to forget our childhood, its joys, and sorrows, its pleasure and difficulties. Things which children enjoy immensely like splashing in a muddy puddle, borrowing in the sand, imitating teachers, frolicking in the rain, this might seem useless to parents and the only thing they look for is how to discipline them so that they don’t make them embarrassed in front of others.
Remember discipline does not mean putting an undue restriction on children. It is an ongoing process that requires giving specific instructions that are clear cut with a lot of clarity. As every child is unique and acquiring new skills every day, parents need to be patient and should not treat them like a puppet. The right kind of discipline is one of the keys to having a happy home and is also essential for the holistic development and well-being of every child. Discipline varies with age, needs, and situations.

15 Ways to Discipline Your Child

December 20, 2021February 9, 2022

Need For Mental Health Awareness and Inclusiveness #MentalHealthAwareness #CauseAChatter

Mental Health Awareness is something that can help the millions of people who are impacted by mental health conditions across the globe. It should be considered as any other illness. Month of May is recognized as Mental Health Awareness month ,the sole purpose is to help people with mental illnesses understand that they are not alone in their struggle and that getting treatment can make all the difference. If we apply this approach to mental health every day of the year, more and more people could benefit from knowing about these common illnesses.

The difference in the quality of medical care received by people with mental illness is one of the reasons why they live shorter lives than people without mental illness. Even in the best-resourced countries in the world, this life expectancy gap is as much as 20 years. In the developing countries of the world, this gap is even larger. But of course, mental illnesses can kill in more direct ways as well. The most obvious example is suicide. Suicide is at the top of the list of the leading causes of death in young people in all countries in the world, including the poorest countries of the world. But beyond the impact of a health condition on life expectancy, we are also concerned about the quality of life lived.

We need to use a matrix called DALY , Disability-Adjusted Life Year.

The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) and the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) are two popular health status indices, used to measure health outcomes based on the duration and quality of life for an individual. The QALY was the first developed health status index, and is mostly used in developed countries. A QALY is defined as a year lived in perfect health.

Both metrics use a scale of 0-1 to represent the quality of life:

QALY: “0” is equivalent to death; “1” represents perfect health.
DALY, “0” represents perfect health; “1” equates to death.

I am sharing this just to understand that by this calculation we can discover which populations are living with the greatest health burden, and prioritize those areas for future health interventions.

December 16, 2021February 9, 2022

How To Deal With Self-Defeating Behaviors? #CauseAChatter

Get out of your comfort zone, accept the change, be positive, be resilient, perseverance is the key to success are few things that we keep on listening. And why not? People who have growth mindset are the ones who follow all of these and are more successful in life. Most of us are aware about all these qualities but still there is something that holds us back and we fail to understand the real cause. In my experience, people who fail to learn the lessons that life teaches them fall under the prey of self – defeating behaviour.

Self- defeating behavior works against your own interest. It keeps you away from the goals that you have set for yourself . They are distracting, self-loathing and self- sabotaging. Nothing can drive you crazier than knowing that you have been keeping yourself away from gaining love, success and happiness which you deserve and desire. Self-defeating behavior occurs when impulse wins over awareness. It might give you quick gratification but you will long for lasting satisfaction, it might give you immediate relief but ultimate resolution is what will make you happier. It is like a coping mechanism, which can make you feel better for a while but can be really be nasty in long run. Self defeating behavior is your biggest enemy, the earlier you get rid of it the better it is for you. There are many self defeating behaviours, to name a few

Procastinating
Holding a grudge
Trying to change others or having expectations from them
Waiting until it’s too late
Always having to be right
Letting fear run your life
Becoming obsessive or compulsive
Feeling sorry for yourself

As with the most persistent patterns, this behavior has roots in childhood experience. Children who are abused or neglected in their childhood, feel unprotected and alone. Then there are children who do not lack affection but are not given adequate guidance, grow up feeling incompetent an incapable. In both these cases they end up with stubborn self defeating behaviours. This kind of behavior are quite impulsive and people act without regard for long term consequences.

December 7, 2021July 12, 2022

Four Digital Marketing Channels Aids In ECommerce Growth

In the mid-1990s, online shopping via e-commerce was in its infancy. But today things have changed and has taken a drastic turn. There is exponential growth in this kind of market and one of the biggest reason is, our encounter with pandemic. Personally I don’t remember going out for shopping in last 2 years. We are six people in our family , all are in different age groups and I can confidently say that online shopping is being popular among all age groups.

Reasons for Online shopping popularity are :

Huge variety of products
Better prices with greater discounts and offers
Easy shopping and discreet shipping
Quick and easy replacement and refund of products
Fast delivery
Zero Human touch
Easy Comparison with other similar products
Detailed description about the products and vendors
No sales pressure

Source :Global online Consumer Report KPMG International

So, when advantages overpower the shortcomings then why won’t people prefer online shopping?

Ecommerce is growing fast. The rapid adoption of smartphones, easy and affordable access to technology, and the convenience of shopping from anywhere, at any time are the major reasons for the rapid growth of online commerce. In E-commerce business buying and selling completely depends on the internet. Therefore, digital marketing gets into the picture, as it is the only medium to support E-commerce business to grow.

November 17, 2021November 25, 2021

How Can Indian MSME be Empowered? #GrowingBusinessTogether

Most of us are aware that the agriculture sector is one of the biggest contributors in the Indian economy. But how many of us know that MSME sector is second largest with high employment and contribution in terms of foreign exchange earnings. In order to know more about MSME. Lets first understand what defines MSME in Indian context as it differs from county to country.

WHAT IS MSME?

According to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development (MSMED) Act, 2006 , the government of India has defines micro, small and medium enterprises under two categories

1.Enterprises engaged in the manufacture or production, processing or preservation of goods

A micro enterprise is an enterprise where investment in plant and machinery does not exceed Rs. 25 lakh;
A small enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in plant and machinery is more than Rs. 25 lakh but does not exceed Rs. 5 crore;
A medium enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in plant and machinery is more than Rs.5 crore but does not exceed Rs.10 crore.

2. Enterprises engaged in providing or rendering of services and whose investment in equipment and other items not directly related to the service rendered or as may be notified under the MSMED Act, 2006

A micro enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in equipment does not exceed Rs. 10 lakh;
A small enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in equipment is more than Rs.10 lakh but does not exceed Rs. 2 crore;
A medium enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in equipment is more than Rs. 2 crore but does not exceed Rs. 5 crore.

IMPORTANCE OF MSME IN INDIA

The micro, small and medium Enterprises (MSME) in India include 63.4 million units and accounts for nearly 30% of India’s GDP, employing about 460 million people. The sector also makes up for 33.4% of the India’s output in manufacturing, giving employment to around 120 million Indians, according to CII. When it comes to exports, the MSMEs contribution is estimated at about 45% of the total exports.

REASONS BEHIND LOW CONTRIBUTION

Despite such huge contribution, 99% of MSME remain micro in their life cycle. What’s the reason behind this? Well the reasons are many but to name a few, it is due to

Lack of standardization
Lack of efficiency
Lack of consistency
Low productivity
Low rate of technology adaptation
Unfavorable government policies
Lack of trusted eco system

But things are changing and definitely changing for good. I have listed few positive changes recommended by government with some doable solutions.

WAYS FOR MSME TO EMERGE STRONGER

Financial Inclusion

As most of the MSME runs on sole proprietorships (an unincorporated business with only one owner who pays personal income tax on profits earned), there entire focus remains on how to save their business from sinking and sustain in the market for longer time, rather than spending time to grow the ecosystem. For this it is important that financial institutions like NBFCs should help them by bringing more financial inclusions. The concept of financial inclusion encompasses all public and private initiatives to bring financial services to those households and MSMEs traditionally excluded from the formal financial sector, and furthermore, to improve and perfect the serviceability of the financial system for the players that are already part of the formal financial circuit.

Digitization

MSME has always been a labor intensive this leads to poor quality products and low productivity. The study also found that digitization of MSME could expand their contribution to India’s GDP by 10 percentage points, pushing it up to 46-48%. Therefore, it is imperative that MSME attain their full potential and reach to the next level of business growth by adopting technology. Many tech companies are focusing on MSME and making them tech friendly. Large tech companies like Dell, HP, Intel, Vodafone, Idea and WhatsApp came together under the guidance of industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for project called Tech-Saksham. The project plans to reach out to over 10,000 MSMEs. The tech companies will work with MSME by assisting them with technology, resources and expertise to make sure India’s large MSME base gets digitized.

Company like google has come up with a program in partnership with FICCI called ‘Digital Unlocked’, to provide digital skills to help SMEs to connect with their customer base online, through out the country. Even Facebook has announced ‘Facebook’s VC Brand Incubator Program’ that will focus on helping MSME achieve growth in India by providing them with technology skilling and support. Cisco, one of the largest player when it comes to networking has come up with an initiative called ‘Start Portfolio’ where in, they will interact with 25 MSME everyday to help them go digital.

Atmanirbhar Bharat

Introduction of ‘Make in India’ concept by our Prime Minister helped decentralizing localism by taking pride in indigenous brands, emphasizes resilience and adaptability, and encourages local craftsmanship and employability. Make in India initiative facilitate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill development, encourage employment, and build a sustainable eco-system for the MSME sector in India. This will encourage the idea of making in India for the MSME industry and help amplify their presence across sectors.

Digital Transaction

The government has come up with many schemes to help micro and small industries. The Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme of the government can be beneficial for the sunrise sectors, including electronics, electrical and machinery.” Many large companies have come up to help MSME by making them work as their ancillaries. Another scheme which is also introduced by the government recently is ‘Fintech’, this is to promote digital transactions in the country, a move that the industry believes will drive adoption of e-payments in smaller cities and spur innovation by fintech firms. This will help MSME to become more sustainable and can survive in a long run.

Adaptability

As a proud Indian, I take immense pride in saying that we as a community are quite adaptable when it comes to change and if the change is for good nothing can stop us. Advancement in technology has always proved to be beneficial not just for riches but for people who struggle with their daily living. Therefore whether its is adapting technology or accepting policies and schemes , MSME are doing every bit to make themselves self sustainable that will help leverage our economy.