In this rapidly evolving technological landscape, organizations face the steep challenge of keeping the workforce sufficiently upskilled to stay on the bleeding edge of technological innovations. In this globally connected economy, failure to capitalize on the continuous small technological advances can lead to getting disrupted by a newcomer.
To achieve an agile human resource pool, organizations must maintain a pool of seasoned professionals and have a healthy pipeline of young workforce. Since seasoned professionals are few and far between in almost all sectors, in-house talent grooming and retention have a better return on investment.
One of the key concerns of employers about newcomers is that the ramp-up period is often long and costly. The unfortunate static nature of technical education in Bangladesh means most things students learn in class are often outdated and do not reflect current industry practices. Most engineering managers do not expect any meaningful contribution from their junior coworkers in their first 6-9 months. These junior members need a lot of handholding from the senior members of the team, which often means a temporary dip in the overall team productivity.
Shorter tenure of young employees means organizations have to constantly train new hires. This lack of ready-to-go junior contributors negatively impacts firms’ bottom lines. New hires also come with a shorter supply of soft skills such as clear communication, empathy, task prioritization, and business value assessment. This often means even lower productivity and sometimes demoralizes both the employee and the employer.
From the new hire’s perspective, there are also great challenges. Classroom education is often extremely decontextualized, and students have a hard time understanding the purpose of what they are being taught, particularly in the early years of their university education.
To make matters worse, the relatively small footprint of industry-academia collaboration means the faculties are also insulated from current industry practices and, hence, fail to provide a fresher perspective. Since the low productivity of mint employees makes the hiring managers desire candidates with 1-2 years of experience, we end up with the ‘chicken and egg’ problem of looking for freshers with 1-2 years of experience.
The ‘Cooperative Education’ (Co-op) model has been successfully used in many developed countries to address this issue. This model allows students to gain valuable professional work experience while still being actively enrolled in their undergraduate program of study. Typically, a 4-year undergraduate program is extended by a year with the addition of mandatory co-op participation.
A key difference between this and the internship model in Bangladesh is the introduction of professional experience earlier, somewhere during the sophomore year. This allows students to have three to four sessions of 12 to 15 weeks of professional experience over five years. Unlike internships, which usually happen at the tail end of the academic program and are often ceremonial, these sessions are mandatory and allow a student to have a more immersed professional experience throughout the undergraduate years.
This formal structure helps organizations develop strategic plans to groom the students and create an effective pipeline for talent development. Companies can bring in sophomore students and start introducing them to ground-level roles. These students then return to the classroom with a heightened context for their education. When these students return the following year, they will already possess some background knowledge and be more productive. They can also be asked to mentor junior co-ops, which helps them develop soft skills. Almost all the co-op positions are paid, although they are paid a fraction of what a junior member is paid, making the ROI net positive.
With a high unemployment rate and red tape in educational reform, creating a co-op model in Bangladesh will be a tough task. Getting student buy-in for the one-year addition to their academic schedule could take time. Also, disruption of the academic calendar, which is a common phenomenon here, can discourage employers from planning and committing resources to the program. Having said that, proven long-term benefits demand that we take an explorative look at this model. Medical education in Bangladesh already has a year-long mandatory internship program. The Co-op model demands that the year-long period be broken into 3 or 4 sessions and interspersed with regular academic activities.
The relatively agile administration of the top-ranked private universities in Bangladesh put them in a suitable position to launch pilot programs. Disciplines with a constant shortage of skilled workforce, computer science, leather, and textile engineering, to name a few, can be candidates for these pilots.
One key challenge will be finding industrial partners who recognize the value of these strategic investments. Top corporate houses in Bangladesh already have some formal internship programs, which can be pursued to create a co-op model for their talent supply.
In countries with a long tradition of co-op programs, organizations understand their value proposition. Academic institutions merely provide an interface for students and employers to interact and find a suitable position. However, the initial establishment of such contracts among employers, students, and universities will require a lot of trust and developing a long-term mindset.
Universities will need to create an office of cooperative education whose sole goal will be to develop relationships with potential employers to create co-op opportunities for students. However, most universities still think their responsibilities stop at offering courses and certificates. So, there needs to be a radical mind shift from the educators, and the university administration must invest in career counseling. Creating advisory boards of representatives from various industries can guide the co-op program’s direction and ensure it aligns with employer needs. Faculties must work with employers to design co-op experiences that align with students’ academic learning outcomes. This ensures students gain practical skills that reinforce their classroom knowledge.
Employers should incorporate co-op education investment in their human resource development strategy. They should allocate dedicated resources who will directly engage with universities to create agreements outlining the program’s structure, expectations, and responsibilities. One key task for the employers is to identify roles and projects suitable for the co-ops given their level of skills.
Employers will also have to set realistic learning goals that align with classroom experience. Managers will need to be cognizant of avoiding menial tasks that offer very little career growth and find challenging and impactful work that aligns with their academic curriculum, allowing them to apply their classroom knowledge. Developing a formal rotation program often helps keep the students engaged and exposes them to various career choices.
To create a smooth onboarding and offboarding experience, they should develop orientation programs, assign mentors, set expectations, and provide critical feedback at the end of the session. Many of these tasks can leverage the internship program’s existing resources. An effective co-op program will offer many other things, such as networking opportunities, professional development training, etc., but the basic facilities should be there.
To introduce a new way of developing a technical talent pool is a tall order. But, to keep our competitive edge with the rest of the world alive, academia and industry need to spend resources in this direction. Since many implementations of this model exist worldwide, there will be a temptation to ‘lift and shift’ other country’s existing solutions.
However, these approaches are highly susceptible to failure. We will need to understand this model’s core principles and then develop an implementation that fits our country’s needs and market conditions. Short-term gimmicky fixes can ruin the model’s spirit and must be avoided at any cost. This writer is always betting long on Bangladesh’s youth, and the policymakers of both industry and academia should do the same. We can emerge as a key contributor in regional and global contexts.
Sameeul Bashir Samee is a computational scientist currently working at the National Institutes of Health in the United States.
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