‘Skills will Become the Currency’: Hyundai on Changing Automotive Roles

The automotive industry is moving towards a future where skills, rather than conventional functional boundaries, could increasingly define jobs, according to Natwar Kadel, Associate Vice President, Human Resources at Hyundai Motor India.

“Your skills become your currency,” Kadel told Autocar Professional, arguing that automotive organisations will increasingly need people who can work across functions while retaining deep expertise in their core areas.

“I see the world moving towards a skill-based organisation,” he said. “Organisation will become a network of roles, and that would further lead to skill specialisations.”

The shift is already changing the kind of people the automotive industry recruits. An industry that traditionally depended heavily on mechanical and automotive engineers is increasingly bringing in software engineers, data engineers, data scientists and other technology specialists.

“We are hiring people from the best of the technology companies, we are hiring from the best of the service organisations,” Kadel said. “Auto industry is diversifying so much because we are not just manufacturing a car, we are creating your third home, which is going to give you a different experience.”

From Fixed Functions to Networks of Skills

Kadel said greater flexibility in organisational structures will become necessary as vehicles, technologies and business requirements change.

Hyundai, he said, is already changing its organisational structures according to evolving requirements, including creating and disbanding structures over time.

“To be relevant, organisation design is extremely crucial,” he said.

The company, according to Kadel, is looking at its long-term strategy and building the corresponding organisational structure, talent and development capabilities required to support it.

This is also driving greater emphasis on internal mobility and multi-skilling. Kadel said horizontal movement across roles will become important in developing employees with a wider understanding of the organisation.

“Multi-skilling has become a very crucial element,” he said, adding that organisations need to encourage horizontal exposure alongside vertical career progression.

This is where Kadel sees the “T-shaped” employee becoming increasingly relevant: someone with broad awareness of the business and surrounding disciplines, but deep expertise in a particular area.

“You need to know everything, what happens to the world. But at the same time, when you’re stressed upon, you should be able to swim as deeper as you can, especially in the areas of expertise of yours,” he said.

Kadel believes younger employees have an advantage because educational institutions are increasingly exposing students to areas including AI, manufacturing and emerging technologies earlier in their careers.

“The current generation has an edge over me. Probably what I did in five years, they’re doing in one year,” he said.

However, he cautioned that greater breadth should not come at the expense of deep expertise. While academic institutions are increasingly creating graduates with exposure across disciplines, Kadel said organisations still need to build subject-matter specialists capable of developing deep expertise.

Software will Grow, but Mechanical Engineering Stays

Despite the growing requirement for software, electronics and data capabilities, Kadel rejected the suggestion that automotive companies would simply need more software and electronics engineers at the expense of mechanical engineers.

“I still say mechanical engineers still stay relevant,” he said.

He compared the workforce transition with the coexistence of different automotive powertrains.

“Will ICE not exist? No, it will exist. Will electric mobility take over? Yes, it will. Will CNG, diesel, future hydrogen, hybrid exist? Yes. So it’s going to be inclusive of all,” he said.

The more significant change, according to Kadel, will be in how engineers think and work. Rather than operating exclusively within the boundaries of their original disciplines, engineers will increasingly need to understand technologies and business requirements beyond their immediate specialisation.

“They will become scientists, they will become somebody who is solving the problems,” he said.

Kadel described this in terms of a “hybrid engineer” who can understand the business from a much wider perspective while retaining the ability to go deep into a particular technical domain.

Data and AI Enter Traditional Automotive Functions

The changing skills requirement is already visible in the kind of talent entering the automotive industry.

“I have a data scientist,” Kadel said, pointing to the use of data to understand how production lines can run more effectively and how efficiency can be maximised.

“Have you ever thought about it a couple of years ago? No,” he said.

The industry’s technology requirement, he said, is expanding into AI, data, automation and other emerging capabilities.

Kadel expects these specialists to eventually become integrated across conventional functions rather than remaining restricted to isolated technology teams.

“My team which is working on data, my team which is working on automation, my team which is working on AI, my team which is working on all future technologies… they will be integrated in all the functions,” he said.

These capabilities, he argued, will increasingly contribute to decision-making, while subject-matter specialists use them to address specific business requirements.

‘India has Huge Talent’

Kadel also pushed back against the perception that India lacks the talent required to support the country’s growing automotive ambitions.

“We have a bigger myth that talent doesn’t exist in India. India has a huge talent,” he said. “The biggest concern is we need to cater to the forums to tap the right talent.”

He pointed particularly to India’s ITIs, polytechnics and diploma institutions as a significant source of manufacturing talent.

Kadel said that, in Hyundai’s experience, people entering automotive manufacturing from such institutions can be prepared for certain shopfloor roles with a relatively short bridging programme.

“We just need five-day bridge course to make you understand how it works in your line. That’s all, they start excelling,” he said.

His argument is that India’s challenge is therefore not simply the availability of talent, but identifying it, bringing it into the automotive industry and continuously developing it.

“You have fantastic people available. You have the right opportunity,” Kadel said.

Hyundai is also working with educational institutions as it builds emerging capabilities. Kadel cited partnerships with educational institutions, including programmes around electric mobility and its wider ecosystem.

Hiring for Adaptability

As Hyundai looks at its future workforce requirements, Kadel said technical knowledge alone will not determine whom the company recruits.

The company is looking for people who understand emerging technologies, including AI, but also demonstrate flexibility, adaptability and a willingness to continuously learn.

“Today’s AI, tomorrow something else,” he said.

“We are rather looking at very passionate individuals, incumbents who have an urge to make a difference, who understand future technologies, who understand what flexibility means, who understand what adaptability means.”

Hyundai also exposes young recruits to the automobile beyond their individual disciplines. Kadel described one programme in which participants are given a car, asked to strip it down into its constituent parts and then build it again, with the vehicle expected to start at the end of the exercise.

The exercise reflects the broader kind of workforce Kadel believes the future automotive industry will require: people who retain specialist capabilities while understanding the wider vehicle and business around them.

“What has brought us up here will not take us up there,” he said.

Kadel’s concluding message was that automotive professionals will need to continuously learn, and also be prepared to unlearn as technologies and requirements change.

“What we have conversation today may stay relevant, it may not be relevant tomorrow,” he said. “If you do not evolve with it, you become irrelevant.”

“Your stability itself will make you unstable. So until and unless you don’t keep evolving, you don’t keep learning, you don’t keep innovating for your own self and for the world, I think we’ll be left behind.”