Dominating the SUV segment with large scale manufacturing facilities, Tata Motors is getting ready to upskill its existing workforce of mostly mechanical engineers towards electronic and electrical skillsets.
The Tata Group company is hiring laterally for these skills as well as picking up fresh talent from engineering colleges offering auto electronic and electrical courses, according to its CHRO Ravindra Kumar GP.
“But more importantly, we want to upskill and upgrade our large existing workforce. That’s going to be a far bigger effort across the industry. Otherwise, what do you do with the existing workforce? They have tremendous skills and automotive-industry knowledge, and just need reorientation from mechanical into electrical. That’s where our efforts are underway,” he commented.
Tata Motors is investing in CESS training across the organization, extending beyond R&D and shopfloor roles, he added. “We have adapted ACES (Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Shared) vehicles to our focus. We call it CESS (Connected, Electric, Shared and Safe) vehicles. CESS is not limited only to electric vehicles, although it will be much more pronounced in that category.”
“While we can hire for a few skills like telematics and connectivity from adjacent industries, talent is not readily available outside and requires a lot of investment and up-gradation of our workforce so that they don’t get outdated either. That’s been our effort – hire from colleges, adjacent industries, sometimes from competition and suppliers, as well as invest in our people,” he said.
Seeing greater demand for alternate fuels, and electric and connected vehicles among consumers, the company made this move.
For instance, analytics and telematics are required to track movement, and continuously monitor and diagnose a commercial fleet of vehicles on a handheld device. When it comes to EVs, he added, a better understanding of battery technology, battery management systems, electric motors controls and embedded software are required.
It extends from the engineering and R&D teams to sourcing to manufacturing, sales, service (including training dealer and service partners) and all the way up to senior management.
Last month, the homegrown automobile company announced that its subsidiary Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Limited has signed a pact to potentially acquire a Ford India factory in Gujarat as it looks to boost its EV production.
