Topic name: Importance of soft skills training and education for current and future software engineers of India

Problem statement-can technical education alone, without development of soft skills meets the current and future requirement of software services in India. Please note hard skills are technical skills and soft skills are people skills like communication, presentation skills, leadership qualities etc Please read the questions and reply most suitable answers .Most of questions in part a) are of yes /no types or multiple types. If you have any extra comment about any subject in this questionnaire please mark your answer and then write your views about that subject in the space given in between the questions , Part b) contain open ended questions, please give your view about the related questions

Questionnaire--Part A) 1) Your Company name, location ,segment and your personal details ----

2) Soft skills are also important for Indian software engineers, rate in scale of 1 to10, where 10 is for agreement and 1 for disagreement a) Indian software engineers lacks good people or communication skills b) Higher technical education gives to much importance to technical things ignoring development of soft skills c) Software industry spending a lot for in house training on soft skills Development because of shortage of talent d) There are shortage of quality higher technical educational institute to develop Soft and hard skills for future workforce of India e) soft skills development will increase the productivity of software engineer f) today organization expect workforce to be multitask then just concentrate only in technical things 3) How much soft skills training software engineers get in a year a) Less than 10 hours b) 10 to 20 hours c) 20 to 40 hours d) more then 40 hours 4) Percentage of budget allocated for training and development of soft skills a) Increasing b) Decreasing c) Constant

5) Soft and hard skills are important, for employees in any organization,(Rate in scale from 1 to 10,where 10 is for agreement and 1 for disagreement) a) Competency level among employees for hard skill (technical skills) are better then soft skills (people skill) b) Management focus is more towards technical skills c) Difference between manpower of my country and other countries employees is negligence attitude towards soft skills d) If more focus is given towards at grass root level, ,soft skills can be improved e) We are in par with European when it comes to technical skills 6) More training in your organization is given to a) senior staff b) junior staff c) new staff d) Every body is given equal amount of training

7) Which area of training and development need for priority in future.( Rate in scale of 1 to 10, where 10 indicates ,more attention needed from management in this area and 1 indicates management need not give attention in this area) a) Stress management b) counselling c) Team development skills d) Risk management e) Cross cultural training f) Technical training g) We are focusing now on all aspects of Soft skills development of employees h) Others____________8) What sort of training you get normally? (Rate each listed item in scale of 1 to10 where 10 means you get great amount of attention on that subject and 1 means you dont get any attention and training on that subject) a) b) c) d) e) 9) Technical skills Personality development Cross cultural training when going abroad Managing people and communication skills Other soft skills development ____________________________

What are important barrier for soft skills training and education of employees? (Rate them from scale of 1 to 10, where 10 mean it is very strong barrier and 1 means its not at all a barrier) a) Time

b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k)

money Non availability of skilled trainer Lack of interest from senior management Lack of interest by staff Frequent changeover by manpower to different companies seen more as social activity then learning activity trainers are more keen in selling a program then improving staff skills formal relationship between top and bottom management lack of coordination among various department lack of involvement by senior management

10) your views about our education system and policies( Rate in scale of to 10,where is for agreement and 1 for disagreement)

a) we have enough higher technical universities b) government should privatise higher technical education c) changes should be made in structure and soft skills should introduce at elementary level d) more engineers colleges needed, government should increase the seats in existing institutions and open few new one e) others_______

11) How competent are Indian engineers Rate each in scale 1 to 10,where 10 means very competent and 1 mean less competent) a) b) c) d) Indian engineers in par with everybody including soft skills Indian engineers good in technical skills but lack soft skills Indian engineers are poor in both technical and soft skills Your views----

12) Our higher technical education is-, (Rate in scale in 1 to 10 where is for agreement and 1 disagreement) a) we have large no of quality institute and universities, producing quality engineers b) we give more importance to theory then practical c) we are shortage of quality PhD teachers d) we need to privatise higher education further e) others--

13) Many consultant are giving training prior to placement ,if you have to invest to improve your soft and hard skills which of the following items you will invest(mark yes or no against each item) a) b) c) d) e) f) g) Developing interviews skills Managing stress Resume writing Communication skills Technical skill Leadership skills Others ___________________

14) How do your think professional courses given my many private institutes really helps(Rate each from scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is more towards agreement and 1 more toward disagreement) a) yes there quality is better then higher technical education provided by government universities b) They are very professional c) Most of them are not really professional, more quality service provider needed d) They dont give any value addition e) Academic qualification are more important then them

15) Do you think vocational training given by the government is important and should be encouraged to improve soft skills along with hard skills simultaneously 8rate them according to your choice) a) Very important b) Important c) Not so important d) Not at all importance and waste of time

16) Do you think its better to invest in current workforce to develop there soft skills Then recruiting skilled force externally (Rate the following item in scale of 1 to 10,where 10 is towards agreement and 1 is towards disagreement) a) yes as current workforce can then update there soft skills b) It gives better job satisfaction and help them making long term relationship as there is shortage of skilled manpower in this sector c) Companies saves money it recruiting talented people then on investing on current work force d) Waste on investing much on human capital, as they dont like to stick with one company for long duration

17) Reason for shortage of soft skill manpower in workplace are-(Rate in scale of 1 to 10,where 10 stands for agreement and 1 towards disagreement)

a) Lack of quality higher technical education b) We are very good in both soft and technical skills c) Too much concentration on technical things d) your views for how to improve quality of technical education to produce quality engineers

18) General soft skills (people skills) of employees in this sector are--a) b) c) d) excellent Good Not very good poor

19) General hard skills (technical skills) of employees in this sector are--a) b) c) d) excellent Good Not very good poor

20) Is there scope for foreign direct investment to improve skills of Indian Engineers ( Rate in scale of 1 to10 where 10 stand for strong agreement and 1 Strong disagreement) a) Yes lack of professional training providers in my country b) Negligence of soft skills in this sector due to lack of quality higher education, so lots of scope for improvement

c) Very less foreign direct investment in this sector d) Not needed lot of quality service provider already

Part B a) According to recent survey only 25 percent of engineers are qualified to get Offshore job due to underdevelopment of soft skills (give your views about this subject) ---

b) What are your views to improve soft skills( people skills) in your software sector?

c) Your view on quality of higher technical education

d) Should higher technical education should be privatised, to meet the future demands?

e) Give your views about foreign universities coming to India to improve soft skills--

f) Are universities taking incentive to improve skills among future engineers?

g) Do you have government are taking incentive to improve quality of higher technical education?

h) We seeing a trend of reverse drain brain, lot of Indian coming back to country, what contribution they can make to improve skills levels of current and future generation

i) How competent are Indian engineers, what are there strong and weak points, your views

j) How productive are Indian engineers when its comes technical and non technical things, your views

k) Can soft skills are be improved among the current engineers through training and development, we see companies are spending a lot to improve the soft skills of workforce your views

l) According to various articles I read Indian software industry in facing Shortage of skilled manpower, your views

m) We see salary inflation in software sector, how do you think India will keep its competitive cost advantage when compare to western counterpart?

n) Software industry see lot of manpower, changing companies to often, this increasing training expenditure your views

o) We see lot of skilled outsource project coming to India in future, is industry Has capacity and resources to fulfil the demand, your view?

p) Share any information you want to share related to this topic

Thanks.

Hopes you will contribute to make this project successful

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Kind Regards Prateek capoor