Godrej Appliances to Skill 55,000 Youth by 2020

KOCHI:
Godrej Appliances, under the vocational training program of the group’s ‘Godrej Disha’ initiative, intends to give a new direction to the lives of India’s underprivileged youth by training them in skilled employment in line with the Government’s National Skill Development Mission (Pradhan Mantri Kushal Vikas Yojana). Godrej Appliances targets to train 55,000 youth to be skilled appliance service engineers.
In the next decade, economic growth in India is likely to create a sizeable number of jobs, most of which will be skill-based, however currently only 2 – 4% of India’s workforce has received formal skills training. With approximately 65% of the country’s population being under 35 years of age, imparting relevant skills training will help counter the ‘unemployability’, which is at present the leading cause of unemployment in India. Through Godrej Disha, Godrej Appliances is trying to address this skilling gap by providing high quality vocational training in collaboration with renowned training institutes that will allow the urban and rural youth to be employable as appliance service technicians.
Currently, Godrej Appliances has over 35 ‘Godrej Vocation Training Schools (GVTS) initiated as far back as 2012, and has successfully trained over 37,000 students. Over the next 3 years, the company aims to add 15 more training schools with the goal of skilling anadditional 18,000 urban and rural youth in total. The focus is to ensure high impact by not only increasing the scale of training year on year but also enhancing the quality of training.The three-month course is dedicated to delivering quality technical education to the youth to learn from basic theory of various technologies to everything in service, repair and installation of appliances. Successful students are recognized as “Godrej Certified Technicians” and also given the opportunity to join the after-sales service team as ‘Godrej Smart Care Buddies’, catering both to employability and employment.
Kamal Nandi, Business Head and EVP – Godrej Appliances, “Our industry is undergoing visible changes in technology and customer expectation and hence the demand for skilled technicians will increase proportionately.As a responsible corporate, we at Godrej Appliances intend to add 55,000 skilled technicians to our appliance industry by 2020. Our Disha initiative strives towards bridging the unemployability gap, by specifically targeting the underprivilege youth.”
Ravi Bhat, Service Head, Godrej Appliances, “With after-sales service becoming a critical part of entire customer experience, lack of skilled technicians adversely impacts businesses as all products require service intervention at regular intervals. It is important that the skill gap in the industry is narrowed as much as possible. Godrej Appliances itself would be needing nearly 7000 technicians by end of 2020. Similarly, with the current fast paced growth, the industry would also see a proportionate increase in demand for technicians. At present, approximately 50% of the trained candidates are employed in the refrigeration and air-conditioning industry.”