Spencer’s Retail to recruit 1,000 a month till year-end

Spencer’s Retail to recruit 1,000 a month till year-end
Our Bureau
Hyderabad, May 30
Spencer’s Retail Ltd, part of the Rs 13,500-crore RPG Group, has planned a huge recruitment drive, targeting to employ about 1000 a month till end of 2008.
This move comes at a time when the Group has decided to more than double its store strength from the existing 400-plus to 1,000 by the end of the year, according to Mr Ramesh Menon, Senior Vice-President (Operations), Spencer’s Retail.
Spencer’s grew from 150 to 400 stores in the last financial year. It has total employee strength of 10,000. This fiscal the target was to add 600 stores at an investment of between Rs 1,500-Rs 1,800 crore, Mr Menon told Business Line here.
To meet its manpower demands, the retail giant has tied up with Non-Governmental Organisation’s, Army, Colleges, Dr Reddy’s Foundation, and so on.
“We also recruit about 200 MBAs to manage various key operations,” he said.
While the sector attrition rate was averaging 30 per cent, Spencer Retail is able to limit it to 15 per cent, he said.
The company also runs a training school called Pragathi out of Chennai with branches in other cities to provide in-house training.
Spencer’s Retail launched a large format store in Hyderabad, its 35th of all formats in the City, with the former All England badminton champion Pullela Gopichand inaugurating it.
In Andhra Pradesh, the retailer is present in Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Guntur.
Plans are to expand to all the major coastal cities and select few in Telangana, Mr Menon said. Spencer’s Retail has three formats — the flagship Spencer’s with 3,000 to 10,000 sq. ft; hypermarket with 20,000 to 60,000 sq. ft and Express, the convenient store with an average of 1,000 sq. ft.
The expansion would be mostly in the flagship store format, he added.