Problem / Objective

Blue-collar workers comprise over 80 per cent of India's non-agricultural workforce. Nine out of ten blue-collar gig workers find a job for themselves through a friend who is already working as a gig worker. This creates an information asymmetry for those who are looking for jobs. These individuals are from urban and rural India and are actively looking for opportunities, but are often unaware of what opportunities exist around them. Pre-Covid, even if they were aware of the opportunities, and could find an onboarding centre for an e-commerce start-up, there were usually huge lines of people waiting to get the job. It would have taken an individual anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour to even get to the front of the line. Often those who reached the onboarding centres were unaware of what documents they required and might need to make multiple trips to the onboarding centre before they eventually get a job. This would drastically increase the transaction cost of trying to get a job for the urban poor. 

Since Covid, most of this process has been digitised. However, the process is still cumbersome and is very labour and time-consuming from the perspective of the e-commerce and quick commerce company. A lot of work hours are spent trying to onboard individuals - and is very difficult in geographies where the company has no physical presence on the ground. 

Solution / Approach

The Vahan mobile application steps in to solve this problem. The Vahan application is an AI-driven bot that not only operates on the instant messaging platform WhatsApp but can only call and guide job seekers through the process of getting placed with an e-commerce company.

The platform reduces turnaround time by over 20% and helps save time for both parties, allowing companies to recruit large-scale workers and save blue-collar workers from exploitation at the hands of middlemen. 

The Vahan Application has also adopted WhatsApp as its user interface to make it more user-friendly. The front end of the application has hence become accessible to users through a WhatsApp bot, in which users could type their queries, and the bot would answer and collect data that would be used to match them to jobs. The bot understands 8 Indian languages and can continue a conversation even if it is in a mix of languages and with unrecognisable grammar or syntax. The voice call feature of the Bot also can communicate with individuals in multiple languages using colloquial terms and grammar. 

The application is backed by a network of city recruitment agencies that handhold candidates and provide them with support and guidance in local languages. These local recruitment agencies, which have a deep understanding of local needs and requirements, with the help of the Vahan AI are almost 3X more efficient than before. Like the Marvel superhero Iron Man, these recruitment agencies armed with the Vahan mobile application, are together better than either one individually. 

Impact / Implementation

The Vahan currently helps place the urban poor in gig jobs, often within the first 48 hours of them registering on the application. In some instances, people have also been onboarded to a job within 8 hours of them downloading the mobile application. Vahan’s presence currently extends to over 480 cities across India, encompassing Tier 1, Tier 2, and even some Tier 3 cities. The AI-driven platform is not just a job placement tool; it drives positive change, enabling economic empowerment and fostering growth for businesses and individuals. Vahan leads in managing the workforce for delivery businesses, offering solutions with unparalleled efficiency. It has become the preferred choice for businesses looking to seamlessly manage their delivery workforce.

Vahan Technologies: Enabling Blue-Collar Employment. Harvard Business Review; https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=JvGmBwXQgrwLXehx&v=6LNk6Bc48HY