It’s back to school for retail head-hunters

NO MORE KID BIZ

Samidha Sharma & Deepshikha Monga NEW DELHI

THE retail sector's hunt for manpower is leading players to hitherto uncharted territory. Now, school students (Class X and XII passouts) are being roped in to help the sector satisfy its insatiable appetite for skilled workforce. So, companies such as Reliance Retail, Pantaloon and Godrej Agrovet are going to schools to scout for talent. Reliance Retail, which plans to recruit around 5 lakh employees for its venture over the next five years, expects to hire around 60-70% of its front-end staff from government schools. These Class XII passouts then undergo a sixmonth training programme before getting on to the shop floor. Similarly, Pantaloon Retail hires as many as 300 school passouts from both government and private schools, out of the 600 it recruits every month. The retail major also gives them an option of pursuing a BBA in Retail through distance-learning programmes at Madurai Kamaraj University and pays half the fee on completion of one year of the course. It currently has on its rolls around 3,500 school passouts, picked up from various schools in the country. "The distance-learning BBA programme offers these youngsters a chance to chart out a career path of growth and an opportunity to become more than mere shopfloor attendants," says Pantaloon Retail HR head Sanjay Jog. The retailer has a five-week operations and sales training programme for its recruits and a week-long training on self-development. On the other hand, Godrej Agrovet, the Rs 870-crore rural retail initiative of the Godrej Group, trains Class X passouts under its sixmonth ‘Godrej Aadhaar Krishi Gurukul’ programme. It has so far trained 85 students in the field of agricultural advisory services, apart from personality development, computer skills and sales. It will train another batch of 120 students by May this year and plans to train about 1,000 such students by March 2008. According to CII, the retail sector can absorb 90 lakh people over the next five years. Ma Foi Management Consultants has been recruiting Class XII passouts for retail players and expects this trend to catch up as organised retail goes on an expansion spree. Says the HR consultancy’s chief operating office, E Balaji, "Both employee development and retention are on the agenda of retailers who are hiring in bulk, in anticipation of their massive expansion exercise."

Source : - The Economic Times