The Hindu Business Line : Adecco, Dr Reddy's arm join hands for rural outreach

Adecco India, a HR company, will increase its footprint into smaller towns and rural areas by signing an agreement with Dr Reddy's Foundation (DRF), the corporate social responsibility arm of Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Hyderabad.

Adecco will have access to over 1,00,000 rural youth who passed out from vocational courses conducted by LABS (Livelihoods Advancement Business School), created by DRF in 1998.

The foundation enables youth who have been left out of the mainstream to explore emerging opportunities.

Being an exclusive staffing partner of DRF, Adecco would help its clients tap these trained youth (many of them are working with various companies) to expand operations into smaller towns, district headquarters and rural areas, Mr Ramesh Hande, Director (Staffing Solutions), Adecco India, told Business Line.

Adecco India is part of the Adecco Group, an 18.3-billion-euro Swiss company.

The agreement would help Adecco's clients expand their network to towns and rural areas, which would otherwise involve huge investments and infrastructure for them. This year LABS will increase the number of people to 1.25 lakh, he said.

Adecco has over 600 clients, and for many of them the business growth would come from smaller towns like Dharmapuri and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu and rural areas, he added.

Companies in telecom, banking and finance, BPO, retail and consumer durable sectors would hire youth from LABS. "We have an order book to recruit about 6,500 people for smaller towns and rural areas."

Most of the students from LABS have passed seventh or eighth grade, and a few are graduates.

LABS prepares the students for entry-level jobs in various industrial sectors. It provides them sustainable livelihood opportunities through a process that includes aptitude test, formal education, career counselling, skills development, apprenticeship and venture support, he said.

The LABS training programme comprises three months of classroom training followed by three months of on-the-job apprenticeship training. The classroom training covers academic inputs, theoretical concepts and subject knowledge, other relevant inputs in spoken English and work readiness skills to equip students seek appropriate entry-level positions. Practical training gives them a chance to hone their untapped potential and skills, Mr Hande said.

Over the last three years LABS has grown to 85 centres (in various districts) in six States.

It plans to extend the programme to 485 centres in the next couple of years, he added.

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