Skills Development Network Trust Convenes CHRO Roundtable in Chennai to Strengthen Tamil Nadu's Employer-Led Talent Ecosystem

Tamil Nadu has built one of India's largest skilled talent pools, with the state's TNSkill Registry comprising more than 17.56 lakh professionals. Yet the challenge extends beyond building this pool; it lies in preparing people for the specific jobs employers need, with the right skills, in the right locations.

This was the central theme at a CHRO Roundtable in Chennai, convened by Skills Development Network (SDN) Trust, supported by Wadhwani Foundation, as part of the American Management Association (AMA) South Asia CHRO Forum held at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai. Over 20 senior HR and talent leaders including those from top organisations like ESAB, Savista, Hinduja Leyland Finance, RBL Bank, Yubi, Infosun Technologies, Greif and Rane Group discussed how a hyper-local, demand-led approach to skilling and hiring could address persistent mismatches between talent supply and employer demand.

Hiring demand is not uniform as the skills required by an employer in Chennai can differ significantly from those required in another city, industry cluster or even by another employer within the same sector. Yet the traditional skilling journey often starts with the learner and curriculum, with employers entering the equation closer to placement.

The discussion in Chennai highlighted the need to reverse that sequence - start with actual and emerging employer demand, translate it into skills and role requirements, prepare and assess candidates against those requirements, and connect job-ready talent back to local employers. The premise is simple: the closer the connection between local jobs and local skilling, the greater the opportunity to convert training into employment.

Participating CHROs highlighted challenges ranging from the gap between candidate potential and actual workplace readiness to the time and cost employers incur after hiring to make new employees productive. They also discussed the need for skilling institutions to engage much more closely with employers on actual hiring requirements.

“Building job-ready talent is a shared responsibility; it cannot rest with the skilling ecosystem alone,” said Sunil Dahiya, EVP, Skills Development Network (SDN Trust). “It requires continuous engagement with employers from understanding evolving demand and validating skills to creating clearer pathways into employment. The opportunity is to connect employers, industry and academia into an ongoing loop rather than a series of one-off interventions.”

 At the roundtable, SDN Trust presented its Hyper-Local Talent Ecosystem model, a demand-first approach in which employers define hiring needs upfront, training aligns to actual roles, and candidates are pre-assessed before entering the hiring pipeline. The model is already being put into action across local talent ecosystems in Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Noida, Lucknow, Vijayawada, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Chandigarh and Bhopal, adapting to each market’s specific hiring demand, industry mix and talent needs. It connects employers, institutions and job seekers through three interventions across the employment journey - Wadhwani JobReady to build employability skills, Wadhwani JobConnect to link job-ready talent with local hiring opportunities, and Wadhwani JobRise to support early-career professionals after they enter the workforce.

“Employers don’t necessarily need a larger talent pool; they need a more relevant and job-ready talent pool,” said Gaurav Saini, CHRO, Skills Development Network (SDN Trust). “The opportunity is to understand what employers need today and in the future with much greater precision, and then prepare, assess and connect talent against those requirements. That is where a hyper-local ecosystem can make a difference.”

The larger shift discussed at the roundtable was from viewing skilling as a standalone intervention to seeing it as part of a local employment ecosystem. When employers articulate demand earlier, institutions have clearer signals about what to teach, learners gain greater visibility into the skills required for available roles, and employers gain access to candidates prepared and assessed against more relevant requirements. The objective is ultimately not simply to increase the number of people trained, but to improve the conversion of skills into jobs and jobs into sustained employment.

For Tamil Nadu, with talent distributed across multiple economic and industrial clusters, stronger local connections between employers, educational institutions, skilling providers and job seekers can help make the state’s talent ecosystem more responsive to real hiring demand.