New IET India Digital Conversations series to help engineers during Coronavirus

The first of the digital conversations took place on Friday, 27 March. The focus was on “Navigating your career through the Covid-19 pandemic”. Speakers included: Manish Bahl, AVP- Centre for Future of Work, Cognizant, Lux Rao, Director & Leader- Solutions, NTT Ltd and Shekhar Sanyal, Country Head and Director, IET India. 135+ delegates joined the session, which can be watched on-demand on YouTube.

Shekhar Sanyal said: “Working from home is becoming the new norm today amidst this uncertain future. Engineering professionals are grappling with their own set of challenges of staying relevant and equipped during the current pandemic. As a part of IET India’s continuous efforts to deliver insights to help our members and partners during this time, we’ve launched a digital series called IET India Digital Conversations. This is all a part of our work to support engineers and technicians through their careers. This series will feature national as well as global experts from various fields exchange ideas on critical issues around technology, work and mobility.”

During the one-hour webinar, delegates gained an insight into best practices to exercise during the pandemic, top skills that every professional must work towards to stay relevant and ways to balance the current work-life jigsaw. There was also an opportunity to ask questions on how technology, work and mobility dynamics are undergoing a rapid transition during COVID-19.

Shekhar added: “We are currently facing one of the biggest work experiments in history. The current COVID-19 pandemic presents us with an opportunity of immense learning. Engineers and technicians will play a critical role during this period and beyond. We need to reskill, learn to use new technologies and adopt new ways of working. What is key is to keep an open mind and learn new ways to work, collaborate, communicate and keep the conversations going – albeit virtually.”

The key takeaways from the first webinar were:

1. We are now in a scenario, where overnight, 100% of workforce is working from home. Four pillars need to come together to redefine how this will work in a real-like experience: connection, collaboration, security and productivity.
   2. Work has moved to home – that does not imply that ‘home’ stops. Family members have now become an extended part of the team and employers need to take a more human view to the whole scenario.
   3. The largest impact of Covid-19 is that it has crunched time like never before – future has become closer. Automation will happen faster as businesses struggle to manage their costs and the new pressures that the pandemic has put on them. This also means that jobs involving repetitive tasks will vanish faster than predicted.
   4. The single skill that will help us stay relevant will be the speed at which we re-skill. Employer demand for such future-relevant skilled workers will continue to peak.
   5. The areas that need focus in the current scheme of remote working include ensuring:
   - Productivity at home through self-discipline and clear demarcation of working and non-working hours
   - Stakeholder engagement with internal enterprise teams and external clients
   - Seamless connectivity and secured access to enterprise network
   - One career mindset will be the thing of the past. Days ahead will see individuals holding multiple careers and identities as the pressure of automation increase.

The next webinar takes place on Friday, 3 April on “Mind – your own business: Maintaining our sanity in times of a pandemic” and includes speakers like Dr Pratima Murthy, Head of Department – Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Bengaluru, Dr Shefali Batra, Founder & CEO, Innerhour and Mindframes and Smriti Joshi, Chief Psychologist, Wysa

Register and remember to check out IET and IET India social media for the latest updates.