Online food delivery platform Swiggy on Tuesday announced a skilling initiative to offer free learning opportunities to thousands of delivery executives and their children.
The L&D team learnt that a majority of the delivery partners wanted to acquire skills that would enhance their current role, pick up new roles at Swiggy and even prepare for opportunities that are beyond the company.
“The idea is to build the right skills in our delivery partners. We want to make sure they upskill to the level that not only do they meet Swiggy’s future requirements but it has a great impact on their future as well,” says E. Thomas Henry Mathuranayakam, AVP – Learning & Development, who is heading this project.
“We didn’t want to offer just about anything to our partners, we wanted to make sure that they actually take away something from this programme,” Thomas says.
It was revealed that most of the partners wanted to learn English to enable them to communicate better with customers. The academy will offer courses on non-functional topics such as spoken English, time management, hygiene and dressing, computer use, personal finance, and mental-physical health and wellbeing.
During a brainstorming session, the team realized that they wanted to also involve the DEs family in this learning process.
Shambhavi Chaudhary, who has been handling the program since day 1, says, “We started working on the project a few months ago after conducting detailed research.”
“Once we completed the groundwork, we launched the pilot program in the month of May and received positive responses from delivery partners and their families”, Shambhavi Chaudhary added.
“Multiple teams across Swiggy came together and supported us in the launch. The best part is that Swiggy Skills Academy has retained the vision just the way we envisaged it to be”, Shambhavi said.
The company’s latest programme will help delivery executives train for new roles and upskill, while their children get access to several online education courses. Currently, 24,000 children and 37,000 DEs have been enrolled.
