“No More Financial Stress for the Workforce”
Key takeaways:
Introduction:
A chain of hotels across twelve cities in Rajasthan and two in Uttrakhand, with its corporate office in New Delhi. With an ISO 9001 quality assurance, the group is one of the leading players in budget hotels. The group also provides planned tours and packages. With tastefully decorated rooms reflecting the culture of Rajasthan and access to the city, the hotels are targeted at travellers who are looking at exploring the urban landscapes as well as tourist spots. The company’s vision is to diversify its existing business with travel and hospitality-related services and open more budget options across the states of UP and West Bengal.
The Challenge:
The company has witnessed exponential growth in a short period. With a family-run business, the senior positions are managed within the family and the question of loyalty or reliability has not been a problem. However, as a growing group, it quickly realised the impact of turnover on its bottom line. The group has to hire locals in the location of the specific hotel as employees, who belong to the lower income group. With no dearth of hotels in the locations that the company is in, it becomes increasingly important to retain the hired help. The workforce started to complain about financial shortfalls between pay periods with growing inflation. They were not able to manage their funds and judiciously plan their spending.
Getting to the heart of the problem:
Understanding the economic background of the workforce became vital for surviving in the business. As the higher management was mostly family, the focus of the group was profit-driven, which ignored the woes of the workforce. Waiting for a whole month to get paid can take a toll on a family. Also, the fact that the workforce stayed a considerable distance from their families to give them more financial stability added to the frustration. Unipe with its employee benefits gave the perfect solution to the problem.
The Solution:
The company did not necessarily need trained workers but required a local population who have immense knowledge of the city/place they were running hotels in. The selling point is to sell local flavours and experiences to its guests. So it needed a system in place to ensure salaries go out in time and it also desperately needed to add Unipe EWA advantage to the wage benefits. Access to salary and control over the money they earned was all the workers needed. This also allowed them to send money home as and when it was required.
Benefits of using Unipe:
Alleviating financial stress of employees- Financial stress was taken care of with the Unipe EWA program. Employees did not have to wait four weeks for a pay-check and could plan their spending better. The employees have already accessed over INR 1,45,000 since Unipe’s presence in the system, clearly indicating the need for the program.
Wage benefits that help- Coming from a lower income group, it can be financially hard to survive debt free. Banks or financial/lending institutions check the eligibility of the employee’s ability to pay back and accordingly designate interest rates that can break their back. Unipe’s unique program allowed them to not just access money but also clear debts on time.
Post-Unipe picture:
