Essar Telecom Retail to train 10,000

Essar Telecom Retail's The Mobilestore, will spend Rs 15 crore in training 10,000 people in three years, Rajiv Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, Essar Telecom Retail said.

An Essar Group company, Essar Telecom Retail launched its retail foray for mobile devices in association with the Virgin Group earlier this year.

The company had announced plans to set up over 2,500 stores in the next three years across 600 cities in India. Besides standalone showrooms, the retail chain is also mulling increasing its pan-India presence with shop-in-shop growth.

"We will be in 300 shop-in-shop this year," said Agarwal while adding that they are in talks with retail houses for the shop-in-shop foray.

At present, four months into operations, the company has set up 190 stores and employs 1,100 people.

It has a 15-day training programme for its employees besides an e-learning portal. "For the initial 15 day training we spend Rs 15,000 per employee and will employee 10,000 people in three years," Aggarwal said. He was in town to launch its 190th store.

"Also unlike other retail chains the employees have to undergo continuous e-learning exams and tests to upgrade their skills," Agarwal said. "Even the pay scales are higher than the going rate in the retail sector at Rs 7,000 per month plus 25 per cent incentives," he added.

Yet, the retail chain is faced with the challenge of attrition."We are experiencing a 6-7 per cent attrition rate per month," he said, adding that specialist electronic/ hardware stores and companies often poach their employees.

The company is in talks with various colleges and institutes for campus recruitments at the graduate and post graduate levels. It is also considering hiring part time employees to manage peak time demand of 5pm to 9pm.

"70 per cent of our business takes place in the evenings between 5-9pm and we are considering hiring part time employees to meet this peak evening demand," he said.