Retailers rope in mamas

The shortage of skilled labour fluent in English has led to retailers like Shoppers' Stop, FabIndia and ITC Wills Lifestyle hiring housewives and students to man their stores on part-time basis during peak shopping hours. Nearly two-thirds of purchases are made between 2-9 pm over the weekends.

The customary practice is to hire temporary staff for a few months on all working days. With this new practice, retailers can cut down costs by adding employees only on weekends "" when experts say the demand by customers is 200 per cent higher than weekdays.

Retailers have rolled out this system in Bangalore and Mumbai so far, employing 700 people under this scheme for customer service and sales related jobs. There are plans of spreading this practice across the country with Lucknow being the next destination.

"This system also works as a pre-qualification for selecting permanent staff. It allows us to funnel out good employees, thereby saving us both time and labour," said BS Nagesh, managing director and chief executive officer, Shoppers' Stop.

TeamLease Services, an HR outsourcing company, had started offering this product to enable retailers to attend to customers during peak shopping time.

"The salary can vary between Rs 200 and Rs 500 per day, based on skills, and reflects a short-term premium over a pro-rated permanent job," said Manish Sabharwal, chairman, TeamLease.

With retailers operating at margins of 3-4 per cent, they cannot possibly be expected to undertake extensive training services, said Sabharwal. For this very reason, retailers are now eyeing non-traditional labour. The only qualification for these jobs is fluency in English.