SaffronStays empowers rural India through training centre

Micro-hospitality brand SaffronStays has launched its first-ever training centre to facilitate 360-degree training locals who can be employed as cooks and caretakers in vacation homes across the country. The brand will teach, train and empower 1500 individuals in skills ranging from hygiene to health-care, and cooking to concierge.
Tejas Parulekar, Founder, SaffronStays, says, “We are an inclusive brand. Our caretakers are our ‘Moment of Truth’ since they are first recall points of brand experience, and hence training them was a priority. The training centre in Panvel is our first giant step towards skills development, and would over time, become a part of our CSR activity. We would eventually look at top hospitality brands to collaborate and co-create the modules to train the staff”.
The first successful test run involved caretakers from SaffronStays 9 Palms, Alibaug, SaffronStays Sanskriti, Kashi, and SaffronStays Little Paradise, Murud. The caretakers were imparted in-depth knowledge of local dishes that covered over 25 recipes for breakfast, lunch, high tea and dinner. Various types of service-enhancing modules were taught during the three-day session. This included styling and setting up of community tables, table decoration and flower arrangement using locally-grown flaura. The aim is to cater to the larger goal of running 500 homes and providing a parallel support of skilled caretakers.