Tapping into a digital brain - AI powered Talent Management at Infosys

1. What is the business problem to be solved, and why is it important?

 Infosys is a global information technology consulting and software services providing
company. In 2017, Infosys was operating in more than 40 countries, and managing a talent
pool of more than 2 lakh employees, comprising mainly of software specialists and technical
consultants. Infosys operates with a pre-defined taxonomy of more than 2000 skills that could
be attributed to an employee at any given point in time.
 Prior to 2015, employees’ skillset and experience were manually assessed in a detailed way
and later this information was used to assign them to various projects as per need and
requirement.
 This process had various drawbacks. The first challenge was the lack of real time data due to
manual process. Additionally, manual processing made talent management time-consuming
and prevented data from being up-to-date. The resources were not efficiently utilized, a
critical issue. Since talent was not managed efficiently, it had huge potential to impact the
performance of the entire company by affecting customer and client satisfaction heavily, as
delivery would get affected in spite of the presence of a huge talent pool. On the other side,
there was a huge possibility of dissatisfaction among the employees and them not being
utilized fully or their skills not being used appropriately, potentially impacting employee
retention and chances of higher attrition.
 Talent Management was not a complicated process, but it was a very tedious one. A lot of
manual work was involved, and because it wasn’t automated, this process was prone to
errors.
 Delivery leaders at Infosys had felt the need to change this so that talent management was a
smooth, seamless & automated process, which could run on its own, so that the focus could
be on bigger things that would benefit Infosys better. The project aimed to build a dynamic,
automated organizational structure to reduce turnaround times in talent allocation.
 The focus was not just on better utilisation of resources but also on developing employees,
understanding their proficiencies better and matching talent with opportunities that align
more closely with their profiles, thereby leading to elevated levels of contentment and
fulfilment. By doing this, Infosys could achieve its metaphorical vision of transforming itself
like a live organism, having the potential to responded to its surroundings by continually
evolving and being effective.
2. Is this a problem that AI can solve?
 Infosys, being a company with more than 2 lakh employees operating in more than 40
countries and with a list of more than 2000 skills to choose from, had felt the need for a solid
talent management process. The manual process that was employed was not able to serve the
purpose efficiently and effectively. One of the main disadvantages of the manual process was
the limitations that it had in scaling up. It was not able to help in processing real-time client
requirements. When the key people from the management envisioned the need to enhance the
talent allocation process, they realised that the possibilities were endless. Apart from real
time allocation based on client needs, other areas like employee growth, progress, upskilling
could also be looked into. The vision of the team slowly evolved to include various other
aspects like selections based on a wide range of parameters, parameter-based filters,
utilization of complex parameters like preferences, historic and recent engagements. AI had
the potential to suggest solutions with greater levels of accuracy in spite of various complex
requirements. One of the most important aspects of using AI would be to offload the manual
work of talent management to computers and automate it with enhancements so that the time
of the people involved in the process was available for more strategic requirements.
 AI could optimize talent management process by automating the allocation of resources,
reducing errors that generally are a result of the manual process, improving the quality of the
 suggestions, eliminating the biases that would result due to the involvement of manual
processing, enhancing the experience of each employee and thus potentially fostering
innovation. By utilizing various technologies and a multitude of parameters and data sources,
AI can create a comprehensive and dynamic display of the various requirements and
accurately present the availability from the talent pool.
 AI had the potential to enhance the entire talent management process however a few aspects
like data integrity, updated data, thorough design are to be considered very seriously.
3. If the problem were solved, what would be the value proposition for Infosys?
 Infosys, being a global IT and software services organisation, was operating with a pre-
defined classification system encompassing more than 2000 skillsets. Managing this was very
critical for Infosys as this had the potential to multiply the satisfaction levels of its clients,
improve employee experiences and mainly help the company free its resources to focus on
strategic initiatives. By solving the problems of talent management process, Infosys could
benefit thus:
 Improved performance: With the help of an AI driven mechanism of talent allocation, Infosys
could improve the performance levels of its entire talent pool by optimally allocating
resources, and matching the right people with the required skills for the right projects in a
timely manner.
 Increased efficiency: By automating the entire talent management process with the right
algorithms and proper data management, the system had the potential to reduce the errors that
used to result because of manual processing thus leading to higher accuracy and increased
efficiency.
 Enhanced employee experience: By ensuring that employees were allocated to the projects
based on requirement-matching skillsets, Infosys could look at greater levels of employee
satisfaction, reduction in levels of attrition.
 Better innovation: By offloading the tedious and time-consuming process of manual talent
management, the company could free up the resources to better focus on strategy and
innovation. Also by allocating from a diverse pool that was cross-functional and cross-
geographical, the organisation could stimulate better collaboration leading to elevated
innovation levels among all its employees.
 Scalability: By utilizing software solutions, Infosys could scale up its resources without the
need to create newer processes. An automated solution involving AI had the potential to scale
up effectively to manage increase in volumes of projects and number of employees.
 By solving the problem of ineffective talent management, Infosys could gain a robust value
proposition.
4. What data will the team led by Infosys IT data analytics chief Rahul Gupta need to
build a reliable predictive model for talent allocation?
 To build a reliable, predictive and effective model, Rahul Gupta’s team needs to ensure that
data is always collected from various sources, updated, live, accurate and detailed. It needs to
be analysed and processed efficiently. The number of parameters that are involved need to be
extensive for the output to be closely matching the requirements. The team could collect and
process data from various sources as below:
 HRIS: have a lot of detailed data of all employees starting from personal details, educational
qualifications, skills, performance analysis, career history, clients and projects worked on.
 Social Media: has a lot of data of any employee in terms of interests and aspirations of
employees which can be leveraged in profiling the employees better.
 Project management and feedback systems: help with a wealth of data pertaining to an
employee’s project progress, outputs, issues and learnings. They also provide data on client
engagement, satisfaction levels of customers and the employees who worked. This would
help in better processing and allocation. Data privacy, security and bias are aspects that the
talent management team need to consider to ensure that the system was highly reliable and
efficient.