A SPECIAL FELICITATION CEREMONY FOR PANKH STUDENTS AT RELIANCE RETAIL

A program was organized by Reliance Retail to felicitate the outstanding contribution of the employees with disabilities at the organization. Reliance Retail started by hiring 33 speech and hearing impaired trainees in Mumbai for various roles thought advocacy by TRRAIN under Pankh initiative. Since then, they have been strongly supporting and recommending the hiring of persons with disabilities across the country. Reliance Retail has people with disabilities as their employees working at various Reliance Fresh, Super & Mart stores spread across Mumbai. Commenting on the experience, Shweta Baghel, Chief Manager - Human Resource, Reliance Industries Ltd said,"During store visits and meetings, it has been emphasized on the fact that these employees are contributing exceptionally well to the overall store performance through their special abilities, hard work, dedication & retail acumen".

Gracing the occasion, we had Mr. Sameer Satere, Head HR - West Zone, Reliance Retail Ltd speaks on recruiting Persons with Disabilities at Reliance stores. "After being introduced to the TRRAINs Pankh Project, we hired a batch of 10 deaf students for our Flagship store in Mumbai. After 8 days of their placement, when we took their performance feedback from the store, the feedback was superb. The customer Interaction was overwhelming and the store manager was very happy with the kind of work the Pankh Students were doing. Currently we have more that 50 people with disabilities working with Various Reliance formats".

The felicitation ceremony witnessed Ms Baghel, Mr Satere and Mr G R Venkatesh from the Reliance Retail HR team to hand over the certificates to their employees for their great performance in the stores they are placed in followed by a focus group discussion between Pankh Team, the Reliance HR team and Pankh Students now working with Reliance formats to address if they have any concerns. This showcases the organization's employee-centric policies and concern towards the growth or flawless working atmosphere for every employee. Speaking of the occasion, G R Venkatesh, Chief Human Resource Officer, Reliance Retail said, "Most of the times the Pankh Students bring to the table a much higher level of empathy, customer Centricity, politeness, courtesy, an ability to learn & train themselves and a burning desire to be of use and help to people around them whether they are customers, or the 

company or the organization they work. We look forward to having more such students working in our organization with us."

At the ceremony many of the Pankh students working as Reliance Retail employees, spoke about their tenure with the brand. Nilesh Yewle, one of the Pankh students spoke of his experience of working at one of the outlets in Reliance retail. He has a diploma from J. J. School of Art. He was recruited with Reliance Retail post his Pankh Training as Customer Service Associate. The HR team understood the potential he had for designing after seem his involvement and work in creative jobs in the store. He was then reevaluated and HR team offered him to join as a Creative Merchandise designer for Reliance Retail Outlets. This has boosted his and like minded and potential Pankh student to find a career growth and an industry that will provide them the platform to showcase their talent and use the same for the optimum level of work in the industry and the organization.