In a rapidly evolving global landscape, it is imperative to think and act in new ways. Continuous capacity upgradation and upskilling are crucial for refining and expanding the existing skill sets of employees, which we facilitate through micro, macro and on-the-job learning.
At Tata Communications, we have always believed that learning is vital to drive innovation, productivity, and business impact. Our organisation’s strategy details our ambition to become a global digital ecosystem enabler and, to achieve this goal, we maintain an ecosystem of continuous skill development and readiness. Our learning strategy thus strikes a balance between democratisation of learning to support the employees’ personal development needs and stimulate their curiosity on areas of interest, with driving value-based skill development for current and future business needs. The employees regularly engage in coaching conversations with their managers to discuss the development needs, which drive the culture of meritocracy and excellence.
Learning culture
The L&D ecosystem has constantly evolved over the last few years and newer methods of learning have been experimented with. We have moved from need-based, capital intensive and regionally isolated classroom programmes, to digital learning journeys. We use blended learning via webinars, virtual sessions and learning pathways enabled on our primary learning interface, Tata Communications Learning Academy powered by Degreed (TCLA). The platform’s strategic approach to learning helps us drive scale, and brings our global workforce together on all their learning and development needs. We also recognise that learning doesn’t happen only in formal programmes, and to this effect, we introduced our community learning initiatives, where internal subject matter experts drive peer-to-peer learning in their areas of expertise. We drive the traction on learning through personalised analytics.
88
Learning and Development
employee engagement score
Key initiatives
1. Tata Communications Learning Academy (TCLA)
TCLA is our one-stop-shop and our primary learning interface for all employees allowing them to upskill, reskill and cross-skill using world-class learning channels at their fingertips. Through this platform, our employees get access to digital self-paced courses, articles, videos, podcasts, and books, as well as industry accreditations and customised learning. We have also brought together an amalgamation of the right tools, technology, and ecosystem to facilitate a self-paced and continuous learning process to further enhance the learning experience at TCLA.
81,111
Total learning person days
6.64
Average learning person days
2,465
Total targeted skill development
2. Global certifications policy
Our global certification policy enables our workforce to take relevant certifications based on the business needs and get reimbursed after the completion of the certification. Over the years, employees have availed this policy to upskill them on newer technologies or market requirements.
4,778
Certifications
completed in FY 2021-22
3. Education assistance policy
Our education assistance policy is aimed at assisting our employees to pursue higher education programmes from reputed institutes to advance their careers, that ultimately support the future objectives of both, the organisation and the employees.
Role Skill Academies: Honing skills for critical roles across our business value chain
Capability development at Tata Communications is being delivered via Role-Skill Academies for skills across roles that are critical to our value chain. The hallmark of the Academy’s approach is that it caters to the holistic development of incumbents across core and future skills required for the role, and the learning journeys span across 12-18 months. The learning designs are contextualised based on the role and business requirements, and the development is enabled using a blended learning approach that includes knowledge-based learning, practice, assessments, and on-the-job experience. The business impact metrics for each Academy are identified and regularly tracked, and the accountability to drive the Academy is co-owned by business sponsors, along with the Learning and Development team.
Since its launch in FY 2020-21, 2,600+ employees successfully started their journeys across the six academies – Agile, Customer Success Management, Service Delivery, Services Wrap, Artificial Intelligence and Service Assurance. This year, we introduced five new academies - Learn to Code, Product Management, Account Management, Platform Development, and Solutions Engineering
2,680
Total participants across live academies
160+
Skills covered across 145 roles
Learning Organisation (LO)
Learning has always been a top priority at Tata Communications, allowing us to consistently transform by leveraging the new capabilities that employees continue to develop.
The enthusiasm for the same has been outstanding, as evidenced by the increase in learning days per employee from 3.5 days in FY 2016-17 to 6.64 days in FY 2021-22. This demonstrates a significant shift and effort toward strengthening the learning muscle of the organisation. We took a significant step toward exponential growth by establishing a Learning Organisation.
The goal was to enable seamless domain knowledge sharing and to build a community of subject matter experts to curate and facilitate continuous learning, with others, and from one another by:
This serves as a forum for learning through virtual sessions (VILTs) or digitally created content on topics that are important to us, or will benefit us in the future. LO also provides an opportunity for subject matter experts to advance their careers as TC Internal Facilitators (IF).
Leading from the Inside Out (LIO)
Leading from the Inside Out (LIO) is a foundational leadership development programme curated for all our people managers and leaders, to strengthen the leadership capabilities in line with Tata Communications DRIVE AHEAD behaviours. LIO approaches leadership as an authentic expression of their inner core to create the right outer impact on teams, stakeholders, and businesses, at large. LIO provides all the necessary resources to people managers to learn the behaviours in detail, imbibe them, and display them in their day-to-day leadership.
The design entails three parts – core, which all participants are required to complete; self-assessment, which participants are required to undertake to arrive at the DRIVE AHEAD behaviour that requires maximum focus for development; and elective, which is a customised journey on two behaviours for every participant, one selected by him/her, and the other recommended by the manager.
2,400+
People managers and
leaders onboarded in LIO
Fountain Head Programme
The objective of this programme is to provide a smooth transition of college graduates to corporate citizens, and enable them to perform their best in their new roles. The 6-week programme, begins with the corporate induction and a connect with all the BU heads to set expectations. This further focuses on basics of telecom, Tata Communications Product Portfolio, and processes like agile, compliance and software security. Technical programmes covering Devops, Scripting Front-end Languages and other programming skills with hands-on project and lab practice sessions, are also included. The new joiners also go through a campus-to-corporate programme, with emphasis on skills like e-mail etiquette, virtual meetings, time management, call handling, and other soft skills, to name a few.
Planning leadership and succession
A detailed business planning exercise is conducted every fiscal year by the leadership team to define key corporate imperatives. The exercise is followed by the identification of key roles required to deliver our short-term and long-term objectives. Each business identifies critical roles, based on the business plan and corporate imperatives identified. Subsequently, the internal talent is reviewed for the critical roles based on their performance, experience, aspiration, skills and capabilities. The list of successors is finalised, and the development plan is made. All relevant HR policies and processes are aligned to create a conducive environment.
EdCast Learning Health Index 2022
We recently participated in a study conducted by EdCast, a leading global organisation in the learning industry, to assess companies in India across industries on their learning health. EdCast’s Learning Health Framework is a comprehensive model, which covers 8 primary parameters of learning that contributes to an organisation’s learning health, and has all the practical aspects that go into building and sustaining an effective learning environment. We are happy to share that the EdCast Learning Health Index (LHI) Study of 2021, Tata Communications scored 85 as compared to the cross-industry average benchmark score of 66, and telecom industry score of 73. This is a validation of all the efforts of the last few years towards staying ahead of the curve, and driving value for our learners.
We scored 85 as compared to the cross-industry benchmark of 66, in the EdCast Learning Health Index (LHI) Study of 2021