With the rise in hiring and recruitment complexities, organisations are increasingly hiring HR professionals to help them retain employees amid significant employee churn to build a future ready workforce.

This is further evidenced through upGrad, who has witnessed a growth of 237% in learner enrolments and 372% in revenues from their HR vertical in Q4FY22 as compared to the previous year.

With elements like the Great Resignation disrupting the world of work, Corporate India is now ramping up its HR teams with skilled HR professionals to lead this mission from the front and help firms hire, build, upskill and retain their future workforce. The need for Human Resource Professionals is critical in today’s world, with evolved employee preferences, in the post pandemic world. LinkedIn’s ‘Jobs on the rise 2021 India report [1] indicated that Human Resource roles have come forth as one of the most pertinent job trends that have emerged in India as a result of COVID-19.

The surge in demand for professionals can be traced through the uptick in learner enrolments witnessed at upGrad. The EdTech major has seen an increased participation from women with more than 65% women learners enrolling for the courses. Learners within the age group of 24 years to 35 years, with work experience ranging from 0 – 4 years constitute the major chunk of the cohort profiles.

Mayank Kumar, Co-Founder and MD, upGrad, commented, “The pandemic has created a mind shift among the global employee base, which has then led to a change in the role of HR professionals. The demand for such roles are at an all-time high, following employee preference and behavioral shifts. Today, the new age HR professional needs to be equipped with soft skills, along with an understanding of the different stages of an employee’s journey in the organisation to ensure that employees are engaged and aligned with the organisational principles. Following the pandemic, at upGrad we have witnessed a spike in enrollments for our online HR courses offered in partnership with prestigious Indian universities which are also amongst the NIRF Top 10 List, and  comes with detailed subject understanding and market-driven projects to meet our learners’ career aspirations. This spike is a testament of the current industry demand and the value being offered by our courses.”

These HR programs powered by upGrad are designed for working professionals to enhance their knowledge of key concepts of HR and application of quantitative analysis to understand trends and outcomes of Human Resource data.

With mixed synchronous and asynchronous techniques, upGrad is making learning easy for working professionals with a case study-based teaching approach, Practical Hands-on Capstone Projects, and a 360-Degree Career Assistance, and requires about 6 to 9 hours of learning per week. With such immersive pedagogy and delivery mechanism, upGrad is building an army of skilled professionals to address the challenges of today and tomorrow.