Zensar Technologies Ltd is part of the RPG Group, a global conglomerate with a diversified portfolio in the areas of infrastructure, tires, information technology, health, energy, and agribusiness. Last year, Zensar Technologies Ltd implemented two large-scale onboarding training programs:
- Zensar Left Shift Campus Connect: This learning enablement program focused on 3,000 Zensar-offered graduates in their final academic year spread across 40-plus colleges and 200-plus PAN India tier II and III cities.
- Employability Skills Development (ESD) Program under CSR (corporate social responsibility): This program offered employability training to engineering graduates and final-year students at no cost for better readiness in the IT industry.
Program Details
Zensar Left Shift Campus Connect
Candidates went through the six-month program in their last year of engineering graduation. They were trained in seven specialized tracks. During these programs, learners had access to self-paced digital content, assessments, assignments, a practice environment, summative assessment, and a case study
The program structure included:
Phase I (1-month Common Foundation Program)
- Self-paced video-based learning
- 40 to 50 hours of hands-on learning
- Five milestone practice assignments
Phase II (4-month Specialized Learning Track)
- 250 to 300 hours of hands-on learning
- MCQ assessments for each course
- Five milestone practice assignments
- Summative assessments (knowledge, code, and case study based)
Phase III (1-month Capstone Project)
- Immersive learning program
- Mentor driven (one mentor for six to eight groups with six to seven graduates)
The program was gamified with learning badges; a healthy competitive environment was provided through large-scale coding events such as Codeathon.
Weekly Leadership connect sessions were planned with practice, HR, and Learning heads, and the chief technology officer to immerse new hires into Zensar’s culture before joining the organization.
Employability Skill Development Program (ESD) under CSR
Bridging the gap between academia and industry, this initiative aims to be a role-model program for the IT industry by addressing the talent deficit in tier II and III cities. The program plays a key role in creating skilled workers as per the National Skill Development Policy. Freshers are given two weeks of reinforcement training post-joining to refresh their learnings before their advanced training.
CLADeTHON—The Velocity Thinker—is an initiative to integrate new hires into the Zensar vision and focus on velocity. The three-day hackathon gives them an experience of real-life project milestones through a 48-hour coding competition, making it an amalgamation of innovation, coding, and fun.
Apart from coding, team activities include interaction with leaders, entertainment activities, sunset meeting, and quizzes to boost participants’ morale. Zensar’s CTO, COO, and practice heads are invited to view the teams’ work during the final judging round.
Results
Campus Connect resulted in post-joining training time being reduced from 10 weeks to eight weeks. Some 100 percent of the new hires were deployed on a customer project.
Some 85 percent of ESD learners received campus placement in organizations such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Persistent. Three faculty development programs were completed for wider student outreach in remote areas.
In addition, 71 percent of job positions were filled by internal candidates in fiscal year 2022.
