Rural Employee Engagement

Companies faced with a shortage of hands in service-oriented, labour-intensive sectors such as retail, marketing, construction and primary healthcare are heading to the rural hinterland to hire workers, with a bit of help from the government.

In a public private participation (PPP) arrangement with the rural development ministry, India's largest organised retailer, Future Group, will train and place 32,000 below-poverty-line youth from rural areas in 19 states over the next 18 months.

And Future Group is not the only one hiring from rural areas. Many companies such as the Aditya Birla group, Hindustan Unilever , Reliance Telecom , McDonald's and Adidas have sourced staff trained by government-assisted rural placement agencies to meet their requirement for skilled and semi-skilled workers.

Companies like IL&FS and organisations like the Apparel Export Promotion Council that need people with manufacturing and construction skills have also entered into agreements with the government and put up training and placement departments for rural youth.

The government has backed such initiatives with a special projects scheme under the Swarnjayanti Swarojgar Yojna, re-launched recently as the National Rural Livelihood Mission , under which it extends 75% support to companies to build training infrastructure and placement facilities for rural youth.

"This has picked up in the last two years and we are looking at ways to increase such facilities in backward districts. In two years, 2.5 lakh people have been placed in various companies and it will pick up," said T Vijay Kumar, a joint secretary in the rural development ministry.

The reason companies are warming up to the idea of investing in rural human resource is the unwillingness of urban youth to take up these jobs.

According to Muralidhar Rao, chief executive officer of Future Human Development Ltd , Future's requirement is also matched with the enthusiasm of the youth in rural areas. "These people are untouched by the urban retail revolution. They are enthusiastic and have aspirations. This creates tremendous potential," he says .(Source: Economic Times)

Skillful Engagement

Customer experiences are directly proportional to employee experiences, especially in service and retail industry.
How many times have you visited a retail outlet and found an executive who is to eager to help (when you want to be left alone) or you don't find 'one' when you want some assistance? How many times have you visited a gaming-joint or a family entertainment centre and found floor executives either not too helping or with inadequate knowledge? I am sure it has happened to you more than once.
In one of the recent MDPs on Talent Management, where I was one of the resource persons, a DGM -HR of a retail giant expressed that two of his most serious problems were retaining and training sales guys in the outlets. They would jump jobs even for a petty-raise of Rs. 500-1000. And their ability to deal with customers is not too high - more specifically they do not know when to help and when to leave the customer alone. Additionally, when it comes to groceries or vegetable/fruits, female customers come armed with lots of information about prices prevailing in mom'n'pop stores or street-side vegetable vendors. Their executives do not seems to have the same proficiency in managing such an 'informed' customer and explaining about best-offers or prices offered by the retail store.
All this brings to the point that 'Training for Skills' is such an important intervention to engage both the internal and external customer.

The Spaceport ( American family entertainment centres) employee training video should be an eye-opener for many on how even less skilled and literate employees, in direct customer-facing roles can be made more efficient through training. And how such initiative has helped Spaceport to serve its customers better.

Note Worthy!