Passion to be a Professional: Insights from the Retail Industry

From the skill development and entrepreneurship perspective, Ms. Nika Gupta, Vice President, and Head – Training and Operations, RASCI (Retailers Association’s Skill Council of India) shares her views on the passion to be a professional. These are some of the insights from the retail industry.

Women’s Day, your journey to discover your own passion to transform as professional by identifying your strengths and doing what you love, enjoy and want to excel into. Inclusion in our minds first and accepting self as “Professional” driven by opportunity and performance and not gender, is a first step towards leading a socially and economically productive life.

Today women are making great strides in the business world due to changes in mind-sets of self and society, the rising level of education and increasing gender equality in the work environment. These drivers have empowered women to play key roles in the corporate business world whilst the number of women entering the workforce has considerably risen in the past few years. Opportunities are many and where we want to start and stop is the choice we have to make in this journey of “Passion to becoming Professional”.

Insights from the Retail Industry

Retail Sector has been at the helm of Industry Growth with a contribution of ~10% to India’s GDP besides being the 2^nd largest employment generating sector in India. A people-intensive industry, while all other resources can be replicated or standardized, skilled workforce is a resource most companies seek to develop in today’s competitive market thereby opening gateways for huge employment opportunities for the youth in the country.

The retail sector is an embracing platform and a “Nursery – Career Start Point” for youth to make an entry into corporates and get groomed, skilled and evolved as corporate professionals/self-employed or emerging entrepreneurs within or beyond the Retail Sector.

The employment / self – employment opportunities are immense across sub-sectors of Retail i.e. Brick & Mortar Retail (Traditional / Organised Retail), FMCG / FMCD Distribution Sales, E-Commerce / E-tailing and Direct Selling / Direct Marketing & Entrepreneurship. On one side, transforming lives of individuals from being a fresher / apprentice at entry-level sales job roles to securing Supervisory level positions in Corporates and on the other hand, empowering and nurturing women entrepreneurship in Direct Selling Industry where more than 60% are women associates spread across leading brands like Tupper Ware, Amway, RCM and Vestige due to inherent appeal for direct selling business and the nature of business. Women join the business with a part-time vision in mind but over a period of time, as a business grows, it is seen that the primary breadwinner of the family also gets involved to build the business making it a full-time business.

Progressive steps taken by RASCI towards women empowerment

In view to meet the growing Industry demand of skilled manpower and youth aspirations, Retailers Association’s Skills Council of India (RASCI), a Section 8, not for profit Organisation, formed and funded under Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), equity participation from Industry and support from NSDC to act as an Apex Skill Development Body for Retail sector. RASCI has been taking progressive steps to bring Industry (Demand Side), Institute (skilling touchpoints) and youth (supply side) on the same platform to create pool of relevantly skilled and employable / self – employed workforce by creating Industry endorsed NSQF aligned Standards for Curriculums, Training, Accreditation & Affiliation of Training Centre and Assessment Partners, Assessment and Certification of Trainers / Assessors / Learners for skill ecosystem, Vocational Training & Vocational Education at Secondary and Higher Secondary Levels.

The standards are created to facilitate skilling, livelihood, and nurture entrepreneurship across Skill Development Schemes in the form of Apprenticeship, Degree Apprenticeship, regular employment, self- employment and recognition and certification of existing knowledge, skills or experience of employee/self-employed individual sales professional / retailer/entrepreneur thereby enhancing their pride, respect, and dignity in the society.

RASCI’s effort in achieving and maintaining gender parity (50:50) is testimony to women empowerment across levels.

This Women’s Day, identify your skill and passion to be the change you want to see, driven by performance.