by ABFRLadmin | August 17, 2021
Meet Kiran Kumar, our bright and young 30-year-old software engineer, an MBA graduate and our new Assistant Business Manager at Planet Fashion, Bengaluru. His ABFRL journey started as an Assistant Store Manager at one of our brand stores in Bengaluru. His quest for growth led him to look for new avenues within the Company and thats when he discovered ABFRLs Talent Management Programme called Pragati. ABFRLs Pragati programme has been conceptualized to recognize and promote high-potential store employees, giving them an opportunity to move into the management cadre.
The programme is tailored to enhance employee effectiveness in their current roles and prepare them to take on the next level of roles and retain high-potential frontend employees. It helps develop functional and behavioural capabilities at all Customer Care Associate, Senior Customer Care Associate, Assistant Store Manager and Store Manager in stores. At the end of the Program, participants are equipped to improve individual sales KPIs and support their teams in doing the same, independently handle a small retail store, maintain a large retail store by demonstrating rigorous operational excellence, and manage a cluster of retail store across spread out geography by demonstrating superior operational knowledge.
The programme offers in-depth classroom training, in-store training and projects to groom the new leaders for tomorrow.
This program has been designed keeping in mind the specific needs of front end employees and ABFRLs business requirements. It is flexible and customisable in terms of training content and type of project allocation. This program is very hands on and intensive and would dependent on the focus and attention provided by the Regional Managers, Assistant Regional Managers and Area HRs. The ownership and the initiative taken by the participant is the single most critical factor in making this program a success.
Mansi Chauhan, Assistant Manager, HR, and Pragati Programme Lead
In FY 2019-20, over 844 promising store-level employees, like Kiran, successfully underwent training to occupy higher positions at the store and regional levels. This for ABFRL is Pragati and Kiran has now grown leaps and bound in five years to now become Assistant Business Manager at Planet Fashion, Bengaluru. He takes us through his exciting growth journey at ABFRL.
1. Youve been with ABFRL for five years now. What has been the game changer for you?
The Pragati programmme has given me a great opportunity to kick-start my growth. It has made me more ambitious, more responsible for self-development, and develop better time management skills.
2. How has the experience been moving up the ladder?
Moving up from Store Manager to Area Business Manager has been a roller coaster ride, as I have seen many ups and downs in my career. This programme has polished my personality and it has helped me sharpen my skills and knowledge to get better.
3. Learnings without application remain a theory. How did you bridge that gap?
The invaluable knowledge I gained from the programme has motivated me to explore different ways of working, developed a friendly workplace environment. It made me realise how to put the motto WE GROW BY MAKING OTHERS GROW in practice.
4. What keeps you motivated to bring out your best?
There is enormous joy working at ABFRL, which is probably why employees are motivated to work over weekends to bring out their best. Its the passion which makes any person to give their best.
