Achin Bhattacharyya pursued this dream to provide access to learning for primary and secondary school education in India. With the inclusion of all significant boards and outreach to urban and rural classes of the country at affordable price points, Notebook is an effort to provide access to effortless and efficient learning for school students.
The world around us has really changed drastically in the last few months. Words like a mask, sanitiser, social distancing and many more have become popular even outside hospital premises and are household names now. Indeed these are changing, and challenging times and businesses have also been affected like never before.
Apart from frontline workers in healthcare and other essential service sectors, work from home and webinars have become the New Normal. Near half of the global workforce (especially those employed in the informal sector) are at the risk of losing their livelihood as businesses have entirely or partially shut shop or reduced their production capacity.
Hiring in a post COVID era is not going to be the same as in earlier times, it is indeed going to be a much more demanding exercise, as the survival of many businesses is at stake. Thus, they will try to get the best talent on board at most affordable price.
There are some specific skills that employers will look for in post COVID hiring.
1. Flexibility
It is essential to be flexible in this hour of crisis, we all need to accept the “New Normal” ways of life and work. Any kind of rigidity will not help.
Thus, it is vital to not only learn but also to unlearn to ensure that there is no carry-over baggage from the past, which will make the uphill task of performing during testing times only more complicated.
Also, in future, with work from home becoming more popular, jobs will seamlessly cross man-made borders, as cost and performance rationales will win over nationalist protectionism.
Thus, it will be necessary for new hires to be comfortable in multicultural settings.
2. Social and emotional quotient
Prospective employers will not only look out for IQ but also SQ & EQ. We are indeed under challenging times where stress levels are at an all-time high.
Thus, any new hire needs to have excellent social skills and emotional depth to connect with people better and also to empathise with them and lend a helping hand to the best extent possible.
3. Multitasking
With resources being scarce, everyone will need to stretch to their optimum level to handle multiple roles simultaneously.
Thus, new hires need to bring on board multiple skills so that hiring managers get the confidence to go ahead with a candidate who will be useful in many ways.
4. Being Tech Savy
Although technology at its best has only been an enabler and has never been able to replace the human brain, the actual distance between colleagues have made the role of virtual proximity much more critical.
Thus, at this juncture, it will be essential for new hires to not only be much more technologically equipped but also have a keen interest in picking up and mastering any new technological innovation which will make our lives simpler.
5. Critical thinking
Recent data published by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 37 per cent of employers highlighted critical thinking and problem-solving among the top skills that prospective candidates lacked.
Thus, it is essential to objectively evaluate information to make more informed decisions.
6. Creativity
Thinking outside the box will always be special. Irrespective of the emergence of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and extensive usage of analytics in day to day business operations, only human can bring real free-spirited blue-sky innovation on board.
Irrespective of which industry or sector you aspire to be in, creative mindset and a fresh perspective of looking at challenges at hand with a positive mindset of searching for opportunities in them will be the critical differentiator in the times to come.
Shortly, business landscapes all over the world will undergo a seismic change at a frantic pace. Thus only those who have original and innovative ideas will prosper.