How Thane-based Globalskill helps blue-collar employees upskill and discover employment via its app

The coronavirus pandemic has uprooted the livelihoods for a lot of people. In a matter of some weeks into the lockdown, many firms furloughed a number of staff. This meant many expert, in addition to unskilled people, have been out of jobs.

At a time like this, Thane-based edtech startup Globalskill helps many blue and gray collar staff, underprivileged job seekers, and college students enhance their abilities.

Based in 2019 by Rajan Gaonkar and Atul Shirwadkar, the edtech startup goals to assist a million underprivileged youth develop industry-oriented abilities to seek out higher employment alternatives.

The Globalskill app received optimistic traction throughout the lockdown, with over 10,000 downloads on Google Play Retailer.

App for the semi-educated inhabitants

After preliminary market analysis, co-founders Rajan and Atul needed to supply an end-to-end answer to the underprivileged youth in order that they’ll discover a job, or register themselves as self-employed.

For that, they developed the GlobalSkill app particularly to supply talent improvement to the working class, in addition to assist them discover a appropriate job available in the market.

On the talent entrance, the self-funded startup focusses on 5 key area areas corresponding to retail, ecommerce, insurance coverage, safety providers, and housekeeping providers, the place the requirement of blue and gray collar employees is sizeable. However, the startup additionally identifies firms that make use of these employees in bulk from these domains.

“The app now we have created is consumer pleasant and straightforward to function for 2 causes. Firstly, our target market is the underprivileged and uneducated group that wants a easy interface and expertise that they’ll comprehend. One more reason is that the employer must publish the roles simply, so we attempt to correlate the talent required by the employer, and join them with essentially the most appropriate candidate via our automated AI know-how,” Rajan tells SocialStory.

The platform has 4 sorts of customers on it, corresponding to people who find themselves doing talent training programs, individuals in search of jobs, employers posting about their job necessities, and video course creators publishing their content material.

The startup can also be encouraging standalone talent academic establishments to add skill-based video content material on the platform, which may improve the attain of the programs past lecture rooms.

Amidst the pandemic, many customers have benefitted from the video-interview function on the app, whereby they’ll add a video of themselves and a quick of what they do for potential employers. This accommodates for a face-to-face spherical, after which the employers can contact them for additional on-line interplay.

“The programs are additionally transformed into vernacular languages to achieve our audiences in numerous states of India. Whereas the content material is written in English, the voice-overs and AI will be customised to the particular regional languages,” Atul says.

At current, the app is on the market in English, Hindi, in addition to in regional languages like Gujarati, Marathi, and Kannada.

Whereas the registration if free, every course has a nominal charge which helps content material creators additionally get an extra earnings. The founders are additionally making an attempt to place up sure programs up for free, that are made with the intention of serving to others.

The startup is making an attempt to place up these programs at an reasonably priced fee in order that they’ll optimise the attain of the app’s advantages, and likewise get extra college students to enroll. It has really useful costs wherever between Rs 400 and Rs 1,500 for the programs, and creators can earn as much as 75 p.c of the royalties.

“The web site is a backend platform for content material creators and employers, the place they’ll preserve a monitor of their earnings on their dashboard. The app is the frontend facet, primarily focused on the college students and job seekers, the place one can get particulars concerning the varied talent courses, in addition to related job openings,” Atul explains.

Consumer Impression

Since its inception, greater than 150 college students have registered for the positive arts programs on-line, and are at the moment promoting their work on-line. The startup supplies varied video programs for blue-collar employees to assist them get a fundamental thought about their jobs, publish which they’ll enroll for an apprenticeship.

Not simply the customers, however the employers even have been broadly benefitted from the app. Ashok Bhandari, Director of Perks Facility Administration Companies, says, “We posted our requirement for housekeeping workers, and we received good enquiries from the candidates via the Globalskill app.”

“Furthermore, the video interview function is extraordinarily helpful throughout this pandemic interval. It helped us to shortly determine the appropriate candidate. It saved the time for us, in addition to the candidate, as the primary spherical of bodily interview was not wanted,” he provides.

In reality, the video creators, too, discovered the app to be an efficient strategy to attain out to the underprivileged or semi-educated people, who earlier had restricted choices.

One of many video course creators, Professor Yashpal says, “I discovered the initiative to develop the careers of underprivileged youth very commendable. Therefore, I revealed my English language course within the vernacular language for the goal phase.” 

Challenges

Earlier, the edtech startup had a tough time convincing individuals to make use of on-line programs. It was additionally difficult to know the expectations of the end-users – the scholars and job seekers. Globalskill surveyed over 1000 individuals to know the difficulties and got here up with a plan to create an attractive platform.

“At first, after we have been conducting our webinar-based on-line training, we discovered that we might attain a restricted viewers. Furthermore, the selection of timings for the courses various for a lot of college students. To beat these challenges, we launched video courses-based coaching, which provides college students the flexibleness to review as per their comfort,” Rajan explains.

Whereas this was being resolved, the trainers on the platform have been a little bit unsure about posting their movies on the app, as they have been fearful that it might take away their prospects, and influence their enterprise.

“Nevertheless, we’re fixing these challenges by conducting free webinars on learn how to make video content material programs and market them,” Rajan says.

Street forward

Whereas initially, the startup needed to face some roadblocks, the coronavirus pandemic modified issues for higher. “We’re planning so as to add a minimal of 500 programs associated to jobs and self-employment,” Rajan says.

These programs would come with each technical, in addition to tender talent programs for insurance coverage brokers, safety guards, supply boys, and so forth., corresponding to housekeeping, English talking, net designing, and extra.

Within the subsequent 12 months, Globalskill has deliberate to create 100 unique video programs, catering to retail, logistics, insurance coverage, hospitality, and facility administration providers. Moreover, it expects about 2,500 employers from the MSME phase will begin posting their necessities on the app.

The startup can also be in discussions with massive ecommerce and retail firms to make use of the Globalskill app for his or her bulk manpower necessities.

“We plan to achieve 5 million downloads by the top of 5 years, with three to 4 p.c of those prospects giving us recurring income. Our general mission is to talent a million underprivileged youth within the subsequent 10 years, and assist them in getting employment,” Rajan says.