Unnatian wins’ Amazing star’ award at KFC

‘There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world..’ – R.L. Stevenson.

In the third minute of a 15-minute discussion, Jayapradha comes across as one of the happiest young women that we have spoken to. And we learn soon that the happiness is the end result of an extremely mature breadwinner who has learnt the art of aiming for more & yet being content with the current accomplishments. Her family background has probably given her this maturity.

Jayapradha was born and raised in South Bangalore. She was born as the 4th child to parents and has a younger sibling as well. Survival in that family of seven was always a struggle, and the father being a chronic alcoholic was not helping the situation at all. One general question we ask students is about their pre-Unnati family income. In this case, Jayapradha was not able to give us any number. Apparently, there was no money coming from the “man-of-the-house”, and her mother would do menial day jobs like selling flowers, fruits, working as a domestic help etc to feed all her children. This was Jayapradha’s childhood!

In spite of such a struggle, Jayapradha managed to complete her tenth standard. One she finished, there was no way for her to continue any further. It was at this time when her mother learnt of Unnati through her employer – she was working at someone’s house in South Bangalore. The mother so much wanted her daughters to settle down that she immediately suggested Unnati to both Jayapradha and her sister Jayasudha.

Both the sisters joined the 27th batch at Unnati and opted for the Retail vocation. She says Unnati was the best thing ever to happen to their lives. They were taught much more than while they were at school, in her opinion. When Jayapradha spoke to us, there was so much confidence in communication, and she says that came only from the Unnati training. She loved the spoken English classes, and recalls gratefully that the meaning of every word was explained so that they are used in the right context. In short, she learnt to enjoy studying! And this is another lesson that she says has helped her with her current job.

After completing her course at Unnati, Jayapradha got placed at KFC. This required a 3-day on-the-job training, which she thoroughly enjoyed. KFC gave her a choice of work location (she is very thankful to them for that) and she chose JP Nagar since that’s closest to home. The real job at KFC was not easy at all, she recalls. Imagine her background. She had to now remember food temperature, preparation, corporate rules of customer service etc which was getting too overwhelming for her. At the end of the third day at work, Jayapradha considered quitting. And then she contemplated all the effort that Unnati put in to make her employment-ready, and she quickly thought of what her family could go through if she quit – and THEN, there was no looking back!

Within the first two months of joining, she got an incentive of Rs 1000 and an ‘Amazing Star’ award in her office. In a short span of 6 months, Jayapradha has won many awards, both as a team and individually, at work. She seems to like the incentivized schemes that demand high quality performance. She recalls that she and her team are subjected to periodic audits by experts from KFC worldwide. And at such audits, she has to be extremely aware of the processes and be confident as an auditee. And she is very thankful to Unnati for instilling that “continuous learning” attitude in her.

Jayapradha now earns around Rs 10000 a month. With her and her sister earning, the family has a regular income now. They have even bought a small house on loan. Jayapradha is getting married in January, and told KFC that she would want to quit because of the wedding. KFC has refused to let her go. Not just that, they have agreed to her request of a weekly day-off on Sunday, and have agreed to give her leave-with-pay for the wedding! This speaks volumes of how much Jayapradha means to the organization.

Jayapradha thinks this is dreamland – she is very happy; her parents are very proud of her; her organization sees her as an asset. She says that none of these could have been possible without Unnati. Team Unnati is very proud of you, Jayapradha! We wish you all success in your personal and professional endeavours.

Team Unnati