With the advent of technology, the focus — while hunting for the right talent for the company — has shifted from just academics to the knowledge of the technical tools required for the company. According to these desired tools, the skills needed to fit into a function are determined, which in turn, affect the talent-hunting procedure. In fact, today, the use of technology is way beyond what one would have imagined a decade back. Right from the shortlisting of candidates to skill development and talent mapping, technology has left its mark across all the functions and roles.

To track the digital skills of individuals working for Infosys, the Company has launched its personalized learning guide, known as Digital Quotient. This aims to track the digital knowledge of the employees to make it easier for both the employees and the organization to determine the digital quotient of each employee, enabling them to better handle the assignments that come their way. People with a better score of DQ are handed over the newer projects and are retained more. This enables the Company to gauge the employees who can contribute to the growth of the Company more efficiently.

“We want our employees to be ‘digital future ready’.  We have realized the need to uplift the DQ of the employees. It gives them a skill tag reflecting their stand in terms of digital skills, which in turn, helps them self-develop in the key areas” – Krish Shankar.

Speaking to HRKatha, Krish Shankar, group head HR, Infosys, says, “The Digital Quotient initiative is a two-fold program, which will be accessed by both the people and the organization to create a detailed report about the position of each employee in terms of digital skills. It will also help both parties analyze the last or most recent projects handled by the employees and the result or outcome of the same. Accordingly, business decisions such as handing over of certain functions may be undertaken.”

A communiqué from Infosys says, “Individuals learn on the job — beyond courses and certifications — as they build new capabilities for the digital world.” People learn along with their careers. At every step and with fast technical advancements, technical learning has been one of the most important aspects of learning and development (L&D), to sustain the competition, both inside and outside a company. Moreover, being a part of the IT industry, the leaders at Infosys feel that their employees should have high potential in terms of digital skills, to swim with the tide of technical advancements. Therefore, Infosys has included the development of skills and agile infrastructure in the scope of Digital Quotient, making the ‘digital first’ mindset more prominent.

Krish Shankar explains, “We want our employees to be digital future-ready. Given the growth of digital contribution to the changing business needs, we have realized the need to uplift the DQ of the employees. It gives our employees a skill tag reflecting their stand in terms of digital skills, which in turn, helps them self-develop in the key areas.”

Yet another aim of the Digital Quotient is to track the changing technical needs. “At the team and enterprise level, DQ is a strategic tool that can gauge the digital preparedness of the business. It helps enterprises understand their digital capabilities, shows the areas that need to be strengthened, and then tracks their progress in gaining these capabilities — giving enterprises an advantage,” states the communique. Improvement of the internal skills has always had an effect on the profits of the enterprise at the larger level. While there are AI tools available for all functions, Infosys finds it important to incorporate digital tools to track the evolving technical needs of the business.