IHCL to increase skilling centres by 2025, train 1 lakh by 2030

Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), a hospitality under Tata Group is outlining an increase of 50 skill training centres across India by 2025, and skilling 1 lakh people by 2030, a company official said.

online training will be in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services, leing IT services provider in country.

IHCL has identified skilling as one of its focus areas under Paathya, which is its environmental, social, and corporate governance initiative.

Over 25 per cent of 1 lakh individuals to be upskilled will be females, official exuberated confidence.

Through initiative, IHCL tries to play a role in closing demand-supply gap of skilled workers in hospitality segment, that has seen booming vancement in last two years after pandemic-induced lockdown of 2020.

" industry has come back in a very strong way... In last few quarters in terms of growth, (if it) is anything to go by, we are looking at a very robust path in front of us... dearth of talent in market also comes on back of fact that most of hospitality companies are on a very aggressive growth path," IHCL Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Gaurav Pokhariyal told PTI.

This was in response to a question on present scenario of skilled manpower being available in hospitality industry.

While a lot of manpower is present in rural regions, a re is a requirement for giving proper training for m to become industry-rey and employable, he said.

"That is what we have been trying to dress through our skilling initiative at IHCL," Pokhariyal ded.

IHCL has selected cause of employable manpower as part of its Paathya initiative, while discharging ir role of training people from marginalised sections of society.

"We h identified a target of 100,000 youth that we will be able to skill till 2030. We have been able to skill 12,500 people to date from 2020," he said. first few years after pandemic occurred were sluggish for growth due to Covid-19, but this number has w gone up with about 6,000 people skilled till w in first three months of year.

entire initiative is for aiding individuals from marginal sections of society and inner parts of rural India, he said, ding that some of challenges in se areas are for initiatives to teach people on hospitality sector, and explaining that y have to leave ir native places for employment opportunities post training is over.

"So re has to be some form of migration that needs to happen," he said, ding re is a perception conflict in sector, that those employed in  hospitality have to endure long hours and hardships in industry, involving manual services.

For diversity purposes, Pokhariyal said, "We have a target of 25 per cent of women and I am sure that we will exceed 25 per cent by 2030."

In terms of expanding skill training centres, Pokhariyal said, "By next year, we will move from existing 32 skilling centres to close to 50 skill centres across different parts of country."

Presently, large and small format skilling centres are present in 15 states across 25 cities. 
largest skill centre is in Guwahati, which upskills close to 300 people in a given fiscal. 

IHCL is sequentially ding new skill centres in tried-and-tested school classroom session format almost  each quarter, Pokhariyal said.

"However, this year we realised that in order to be able to reach our target of 100,000, it is important that we actually have a more diversified partnership in order to be able to live to our expectations by 2030. We have tied up with TCS to do online training and we should be able to train 6,000 people going forward from next year onwards apart from ding on to our skill centres," he said.

IHCL is partnering with Tata STRIVE; HHH -- He Held High Foundation; REACHA -- Research and Extension Association for Conservation Horticulture and Agro-forestry; and VFS as part of its skilling push.

Pertaining to rate of absorbing skilled workforce so far, Pokhriyal said about 20 per cent are taken in by IHCL, with overall placement rate at 75 per cent.

For staff-level recruits, basic requirement in terms of educational qualification is 12th pass, while executive level employees must atleast be gruates, he said. 

dressing competition among skilled workers, Pokhariyal said thin line which divided different sectors in past seems to w blur, with more options to move across sectors. 

" manufacturing sector to a large extent today has realised importance of service aspect of business and started expanding on that aspect of business far too aggressively and that is where we tend to lose some of talent that are available in (hospitality) sector," he ded.