H&M India to boost staff strength to 1,000 by year-end

H&M has six stores across NCR, Bengaluru and Mohali, and around 800 employees in the country

Swedish fashion retailer H&M plans to have 1,000 employees in India by the end of the year, a senior executive of the company has said. H&M, which has six stores across the Delhi national capital region, Bengaluru and Mohali, currently has around 800 employees in the country.

According to Dhatri Bhatt, head of communications at H&M India, the chain is in India for the long term and it believes in investing in people to grow local talent. After opening its first store in the country in Delhi last October, it is looking to open three outlets in Mumbai, two in Pune and one in Chennai. The store count would go up to 12 by the end of this year, the company had said recently.

Globally, H&M has around 4,000 stores and 148,000 employees. It competes with Zara, Forever 21 and Gap, among others, that have presence in India.

To give international experience and exposure to its staff, during the country launch, its sales advisors were sent to the UK for a one-month training while store management team was sent for two months.

According to Bhatt, H&M became the first retail chain in India to give two days off in a week to its sales staff. The company is also hiring internally. "At H&M India, 10 sales advisors in less than six months moved to management roles within the company and 55 employees have been moved to newer roles," she said.

H&M plans to invest Rs 780 crore to open 30 stores in the country in five years.

Another Swedish retailer, Ikea, plans to hire about 15,000 people in its stores in the next nine years. The company had said earlier that each store would have a staff strength of 500-600.