Retail Employees’ Day infuses pride, respect in retail segment

The retail sector both in India and beyond have marked December 12 in ‘Red’. The day infuses a sense of pride, belonging and respect among most front-end retail executives for it is celebrated as ‘Retail Employees’ Day’. The concept, the brainchild of B S Nagesh and his partners Sheetal Choksi

(a former colleague, now Co-founder) and Ameesha Prabhu (CEO) at TRRAIN (Trust for Retailers and Retail Associates of India) is being introduced both in India and abroad by employers in the retail sector. TRRAIN, a non-profit organisation for the betterment of front-end employees in the retail industry, first decided to work towards creating ‘pride and respect’ among employees and Retail Employees’ Day was the first step in that direction.

Retail

Employees’ Day, creating respect for employees

“We simply urged retailers to celebrate this day with their employees to make them happy. It was surprising that people are not celebrating their own employees. We met employees and asked them their dreams. Some said we want to meet the CEO. Their dreams are simple. So we created Retail Employees’ Day and started with one lakh employees in the first year. Last year, we have reached 10 lakh employees. This year, we aim to cross the one million figure,” Nagesh says with pride.

Nagesh finds it surprising that companies or brands don’t come forward on their own to appreciate their employees. “We don’t have any brands calling us but when we approach them they are positive,” he says. However, he feels that one must respect the fact that the industry in itself is small with low margins, so when they are struggling in the business it’s not fair to expect them to do anything. However, TRRAIN’s good work seems to have had a positive impact as last year 420 plus brands celebrated Retail Employees’ Day.

Taking Retail Employees’ Day beyond India

Retail Employees’ Day surely has caught on both in India and abroad as Nagesh and his team’s perseverance is paying off. Nagesh made a presentation to Turkish company and 10,000 employees joined the initiative. “Our dream is that in the next 10-15 years the whole world should celebrate December 12 as Retail Employees’ Day. While we don’t expect to earn anything out of it, the fact that millions of people celebrate this days is our achievement. The initiative has caught on but the journey is still long. If the movement continues for another 7-10 years, it will become a habit. In Turkey, they didn’t acknowledge the idea came from TRRAIN but said ‘Inspired by Hindustan’,” he avers.

In India, another initiative taken up by TRRAIN towards creating respect for front end retail professionals was by asking them to write stories about their own excellence in the field. The 16 best stories were awarded. “First year, we got 1,000 stories and last year we got 3,000 stories. While we award them, many of them are promoted and get other incentives. Since we have tied up with Economic Times, our winners are honoured at the ET Retail Awards. My dream was to bring the associate and the CEO on the same platform. So when they honour the CEO they call our associates and say here is a winner of TRRAIN retail awards and honour him. That’s a big platform for associates,” Nagesh explains.

Nagesh is optimistic this is just the beginning. “In 25 years, if we can impact one million people, we will feel happy. If every company celebrates Retail Employees’ Day, we will have 25-30 million people celebrating. It’s possible if 10 FMCGs and 10 media people get together, we will achieve that in another three years. We want to tell the trade that the day you start thinking, every employee needs to be trained, you have thought about and done well for your customer,” Nagesh sums up.