How Trident incentivised learning for blue-collar employees

Ludhiana-based Trident Group, which is into manufacturing home textiles and paper, has decided to reward its blue-collar employees in a unique way.

It has launched a programme under which the workers can learn and upskill themselves, and earn incentives after the completion of the programme.

The Company’s blue-collar workers are called Karmayogis and they are segregated into two levels – IL1 and IL2.

The monthly salary of the first level, IL1, was fixed at Rs 15,000 with an additional variable pay of Rs 3,000. Now the Company has raised the monthly fixed component to Rs 18,000 and at the same time raised the variable pay up to Rs 7,000, which the Company has termed as dignified earnings.

Similarly, for the level II workers, that is, IL2, the monthly fixed component which was earlier 18,000 has now been raised to Rs 30,000 and the variable or dignified earning has been raised to Rs 10,000, which is based on the objective & key results – performance (OKR-P).

The Company believes that this is a special opportunity for each one of the 15,000 Karmayogis to upgrade themselves with a sense of purpose and pride. The programme is available for its employees across the country.

“This is a ‘dignified earning and learning programme’, and the objective is to help employees earn some extra bucks apart from their monthly income,” explains Minakshi Arora, CHRO, Trident Group.

The variable component will be disbursed once the workers achieve their monthly goals with all the curated training initiatives.

The programme launched in May, is available for its workers across the country.

“The programme was planned to actually thank our Karmayogis for their hard work and provide them an opportunity to uplift themselves,” adds Arora.

Arora believes that this will enhance the worker’s faith in the organisation and at the same time cultivate the right learning experience coupled with the right compensation. “This is why, we call this ‘dignified earnings’,” elucidates Arora.

Through this programme, the workers will get the opportunity to upskill themselves with the latest technologies and practices, such as 6S, CLRI, Kaizen, TPM. Post the successful completion of this programme, the workers will be able to contribute and add value to the system.

The training has been mainly imparted through the virtual mode or shop floor trainings, in small groups with all social distancing measures being followed.

“The programme has been designed to enable self-directed learning with online learning solutions and employee assessments, in collaboration with their learning partners,” shares Arora.

When asked about the training process, Arora said that the training professionals are a mix of in-house employees and a few hired professionals.