The constantly changing times are compelling us to embrace change and make it a part of our nature. Every change is not from old to new, sometimes, we must rethink our strategy to bring back the best quality of our surviving civilization from the old wisdom—collaboration to replace an anti-civilizational strategy—competition.
“We as a race are here today due to the collaborative working of our ancestors and we seem to be moving away from that way of working. The most basic example is our desire to hoard talent within the confines of our organization rather than leveraging that talent where it could be more productive to society,” says Karan Mangat, the Founder and CEO of Skill Beyond Boundaries Ltd. And he wants to change this attitude of competing – rather than collaboration.
Replacing Competition with Collaboration
Karan’s desire and aim is to provide a space where talent users are able to work with each other to make sure that they leverage global human talent to its most effective capacity. He believes that this collective use of people’s skills will benefit not only the organization but also society as a whole. “My aim is to implement this through our platform Skill Beyond Boundaries.”
He adds, “With the advent of artificial intelligence, it is becoming imperative that we change the way that we are currently working. What we need to do now is make sure that our colleagues who will need to upskill have the opportunity to do so, and we find the right work for them.”
According to Karan, people are the core of any organization, and he has worked on both sides of the fence regarding talent management. “The biggest challenge is finding the right person for the right job and then making sure that we give them the opportunity to use their skills to the maximum possible,” he observes.
The second issue is with talent acquisition. “Traditionally, we have used third parties. These could be job sites or recruitment agencies to help in assisting our search for people.” Unfortunately, the experience of all the parties involved in these processes is that they are very expensive, time-consuming, and tedious. Not to mention that the whole process for the parties involved feels extremely discourteous and disrespectful.
Redefining Human Capital Management
He feels that it is now time for us, as a business realm, to humanize the whole human interaction space rather than make it more and more mechanical. To this end, he has not only created a space–https://skillbeyondboundaries.com–that is bringing about this change in human talent management but is also opening many untapped avenues of talent that have not been leveraged to their full potential in the past.
Skill beyond boundaries has been established with a culture of entrepreneurship, individuality and self-motivation. “The people that are with us understand the importance of the role that they play and the value that they bring to society,” says Karan.
To this end, the organization clearly delivers to the best of its capabilities and delivers for its customers without forgetting that its people are equally critical to the organization’s success.
The three areas that they are focusing on as an organization are the quality of the product that they’re building and the value that they are planning to deliver, which is what the world needs today. And finally ensuring that the people in the organization are happy and committed.
Because of their transparency and commitment, they find that there is a high level of trust in their organization and a focus on the customer.
Karan states, “Our customers believe that we do what we say. Even the way we have approached sales is different. We do not expect our teams to be selling in the traditional manner of pushing a product with people. What we do as an organization is share the value and the benefit that we are delivering, and we have found that the people who are with us understand our values and accept us for the same. In my experience, most organizations are looking to build the same ethics and culture that we are an embodiment of.”
Pioneering a Global Business Revolution
Karan says with pride that what they have built is the first of its kind in the world today. Although the concept is old, the implementation of that concept is markedly different.
Businesses, organizations, and societies have all been collaborating at a micro level with the people they employ. Karan cites an example: Any car repair market in any town in India. The moment you take your car into the motor market for repair, you will find that someone turns up to inquire about all the issues you’re facing with your car.
Once you have explained the challenge or the issues that you have and what you want to be done with your vehicle, you find that one individual takes the lead, although that individual may not be the one to do all of the work that is needed on your car. Different people within the motor market turn up and start to work on your car in parallel or in sequence as needed to make the fix. This is a prime example of collaboration and the value that the collaboration could bring. This value is translated into the speed of action, the totality of the work needed to be addressed, the issue, and the cost to the owner of the vehicle.
Another example is from Karan’s past when he was responsible for a small manufacturing unit. There were many instances when his machine would be down for maintenance or when people went off on unplanned leaves. The impact was a loss in productivity.
In this scenario, he started by asking the nearby units if they had excess workforce capacity, which Karan could leverage when his own staff was off. “Or ask if they needed capacity when my machines were down, and I was not using my staff.”
This allowed him to optimize his capacity utilization, both of human and fixed resources. Overall, this became a process, and he used it on a fairly regular basis.
“The USP that I have created from this experience is an online platform that allows businesses and organizations to work with each other securely and confidentially to meet the human talent management needs,” reveals Karan. Where businesses need talent, they can ask peer members for capacity that they may have, and this could be lent, transferred, provided on a short-term, long-term contract or shared.
Where organizations have excess capacity, they can offer it to peer members who could use it on the same basis as stated earlier.
“This has proven to be a differentiator in the market, and our members are finding immense value and benefit from working with each other,” he informs. Not only does this give them better control over their talent management needs, but it’s also creating a social responsibility and delivering social value to their employees.
A Grounded Leadership Facilitator
When praised for his transformational leadership, which is recognized as the driving force behind the success of Skills Beyond Boundaries, Karan says humbly, “I cannot take full credit for the success of the organization, and I do not believe that I have led the organization to its success. All that I have done is to create an atmosphere where we accept failure, understand why we failed, and then take corrective action as needed.”
His personal belief is that only the leader is actually working for all of the organization’s members, and the members are the ones who are making the organization successful.
Karan also recognizes that it is not just education and past experience that define people’s capabilities. “We humans have the capacity to work effectively in areas that we enjoy. If a person knows what they’re responsible for and the ownership of that responsibility is handed over to them, it is rare for them not to accept that responsibility.” Recognition of this ability has been the key to the happiness within the organization and the meaningful outcome that the company is seeing.
An example of this is its relationship management team. It is a team that is made up of wives of serving armed forces officers. Karan shares, “We have not given them any hours of work. They have the option of working from anywhere in the country, and they decide how and when they want to work. When we first implemented this, we were very pleasantly surprised by the impact they had on both our customer base and our internal organization.” They brought to the organization a certain discipline and a certain attitude, which started to get mirrored in other parts of the company.
Even at a technical level, they have transferred the ownership of the product and its build to the technical team. “They are kept aware of the value that our customers expect us to deliver. They engage with our customers to get feedback in terms of the product usage and the ease of navigation.” This attitude of ownership has meant that the leadership does not need to be involved in corrective measures; the team is themselves optimizing processes and codes to make sure that the delivered product exceeds clients’ expectations.
On the one hand, Karan stated to his clients that “ we are the custodians of the platform, which has be used and run by the industry as it has been built to meet their needs under their guidence. On the other hand, my team understands that I am working for them to provide an environment and culture that understands the needs of the organization and the individuals involved in it,” he adds.
SBB – Where Client is a Success Partner
The essence of future revolution lies in innovation, disruption, and enhancing the end-user experience. When asked how they strike a balance between operational efficiency and customer satisfaction, Karan says, “I would say rather than customer-focused, we are user-focused.” In this time of innovation, disruption, and constant change, people are forgetting that there is an individual at the end of the chain of use.
“We very clearly understand that the experience has to be that of the persons who are using the product in their day-to-day activity. Keeping that in mind, we have got to design the workflows, processes, and user interfaces to make sure that they are simple, easy to use, and easy to understand.”
Finding the right balance is a continuous challenge. However, when you do not differentiate between the client and company sides and treat every person involved as a part of the whole, it becomes all the easier to strike that balance.
“It is my role to make sure that I always keep that internal and external visibility” says Karan, who is always accessible to his board members and even to the most junior colleagues within the organization and also to his clients. This gives him the visibility that he needs to ensure that there is a balance.
“When we look at implementing internal OPS or personal efficiencies, these are evaluated against the impact on our users. And when we look at implementing operational efficiencies for our users, we make sure to study the impact on our people,” he explains.
The simplest way to ensure a balance between the organization and the customer is to know that the customer is not a king but a partner. This way, you set expectations where the customer treats you like a confidant and you ensure that your customer gets the same experience that you would want.
He claims, “This is pretty much what sets us apart from the others.”
Staying Afloat in the Ever-Changing Tech-Current
Digitalization and technological advancements are crucial aspects of the modern industrial ecosystem. Karan believes that the technical world changes every six months. “We have to accept the fact that we continuously need to stay current. It is very easy to lose 1st position if we do not keep abreast with the technical advancements, changes and the innovation that they bring.”
Every person in Skills Beyond Boundaries is trained to think differently. They are given the opportunity to experiment with their thoughts, and failure can be celebrated. Karan elaborates, “You might find it odd when I say this, but in SBB, success is a given, and the failures are celebrated because it is these failures that have taught us what not to do and enable us to be highly flexible, agile, and adapt to changes.”
He continues, “Even as we speak, we are in the process of leveraging AI, not just the LLMs that are available for use but to actually create algorithms that will make a difference to society in the near future.”
“All of our teams, be it the product team, the technical team, or the customer-facing team, have a responsibility to identify innovative opportunities in their sphere of work or in areas where the colleagues are playing.”
Also, says Karan that he does not believe in creating a centralized innovative cell where innovations are dropped and evaluated by peers. He would rather prefer that his highly responsible colleagues have the liberty to experiment with innovative thoughts and ideas, try them out for themselves and decide if they are fit for purpose. Given that each individual is treated as a business in their own right, they understand the investment involved in them and the fact that their investor is looking at them to deliver value. “With this culture, we have been able to embrace innovation and implement its value rapidly,” he claims.
People – The Only Element That Makes a Human Company
Also, for Karan, people are the cornerstone of a successful organization, and they can make or break it. “We at SBB believe that every individual is a business in themselves. We understand that every individual knows what the responsibilities are and is capable of delivering to their responsibilities.”
If an individual in the organization fails to deliver, Karan says they first turn towards the investor of that individual to understand if their colleague had been empowered with the necessary training, mentoring, and expectations. “Our expectation is that our colleagues are working continuously with their investors to identify any skill gaps or any upscaling needs to make them productive for the organization and create a growth path for them,” he adds.
“We strive to give every individual a voice, a safe space, and a route to be able to speak their mind without the fear of repercussions. Empowerment and growth are the two pillars of our culture in the organization,” he states.
Skill Beyond Boundaries’ Successful Case Studies
Karan cites a couple of case studies as a testament to SBB’s success. He mentions, “I’m not at liberty to share with you the details of the parties involved, but the essence will be evident.”
Case I: “One of our members (Member A) had won a transformative deal and had to staff up quite rapidly. The challenge that they faced was the ability to ramp up with the right quality of resources. They had to do that rapidly. Failing to staff up correctly would have meant they would lose the deal and the customer.
They reached into the peer member base, and it was no surprise. The member base provided them with the staff that they needed. Member A was then able to work with each of the supplying members on a one-to-one basis and agree on the contracts/ways of working. In some instances, the acquired the required talent on a contract basis in other instances they took this stuff on a short term hire to be backfilled with their permanent staff, and lastly they were able to get permanent transfer of some key skills from the member employee base.
At the end of this exercise, they found that not only did this save time, money, and effort in the onboarding reprocess, but they also exceeded the expectations of the client.”
Case II: “The Second use case is an office scenario that is not as pleasant as the previous use case. The stated members on the platform did not receive the funding that they were working towards, which meant they needed to downsize. They had in excess of 20 individuals that they needed to let go, this meant that the livelihood and personal lives of these individuals was at risk.
The company shared these identified individuals with other members of the platform. During that time, they were able to find suitable opportunities for 14/15 of the outgoing staff. The outcome for them was the satisfaction that they were able to support a large number of their colleagues through a difficult tranisiton. They got the loyalty of the individuals because they tried to find them alternates rather than just dropping them. Lastly, the organization itself was able to save by not having to pay compensation for notice.
When we spoke to our members, we realized that if there was a way to use technology to make talent management function more human while reducing human intervention, the outcome could be less intrusive and more efficient.
It is at this stage that we started exploring the data that we have, the information that we are creating, and the business intelligence that we have access to. We are now working with a generative AI specialist to understand what algorithms can be written and what our learning models need to look like to deliver the expectations of the industry.
Another challenge that was brought to us by bio members was the quality of the data and the concurrency of the information stored against an individual’s data. We are now building a blockchain model and implementing AI to address the challenges that members have placed before us.
Our focus is on delivering these two technical elements to meet the industry needs.”
For further information, please email kmangat@skillbeyondbondaries.com or contact @+918360770 911 or click on https://skillbeyondboundaries.com.
