Respected Sir,
I am writing to you to talk about a matter that is close to my heart and I feel a very important matter of trust and reliability in our nation.
Before I make my point, here is a brief description about me. I am Madhawi Choudhary. I am from Bihar. The entrepreneurship bug bit me when I was working with Wipro Technologies. To accomplish my dream I left the corporate life and joined Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur to do MBA. After completion of my course in March, 2015 I am living my dream and have started my own venture.
The goal of my venture is to build a reputation management system in the society which is safe and secure, as since childhood I have experienced a trust deficit environment. The environment that I am talking about is our own households where we live.
The busy and fast life has left many families with no other option but to depend on the household help to assist with daily chores. They cook for the family; they keep the house clean, do the dishes and also look after elderly members of the family and also the kids. The question that arises is how much we trust our household helps and similarly how much household helps trust us.
One of the main reasons of lack of trust is we do not know the person well. I don’t know how many of us take the pain of verifying employees’ background. Likewise, employees have no means to verify employers’ credentials. Every day we come across horrifying incidents of crimes committed by domestic helps and exploitation of workers at work places. Statistics from National Crime Report Bureau portrays an alarming picture. Work trust, once destroyed, is difficult to regain. There is a long list of behaviors that can damage it. The list of things that can be done to restore it is equally long.
The mobile app “HumAra “which we have developed, is definitely a solution to build the mutual trust between employers and the household helps. The best part is that it’s free.
Our app lets one track and maintains records of those working as domestic helps and allows maintaining documents such as driving license, UID and even keeps records of salaries, advances and attendance of each employee.
The app can be used to-
· Keep Track of records, photographs and their UID’s. The advantage being
o It is a deterrent as they know you have their records stored
o If employee leaves on a bad note or had to leave because of exploitation by employers one can flag it on our app. The advantage then is that wherever they apply for a job or the employer hires a new employee, the person can see they have not left on a good note.
o One can keep a track of who referred the person and who else knows that person. Example Ram is referred by Lakshman who in his job has been referred by Bharat. So using our app if one can’t get through Lakshman then one will get access to Bharat. Basically the person shouldn’t be able to get away after doing something wrong.
o Generation of appointment letters by Employers.
· Keep track of things like
o When is your driver’s license expiring?
o Did he take an advance?
o Leaves
o Last Raise
o Bonus paid on Diwali
HumAra dreams of an environment where trusting someone isn’t a crime, where when you meet a person you are reasonably sure about their antecedents and don’t have to rely purely on an informal word of mouth to know their background. Where reliability is high and great work is rewarded.
The ratings of employees and employers will build a reputation of each individual over time and will enable us in hiring trustworthy household helps and a safe working environment for employees. The app can be used both for households and for small businesses. The most important thing is our app is free because safety of society in which we live is important to us.
I truly and firmly believe that you will consider our social initiative and will influence everyone to use our app to promote a climate of trust and ensure safety at each household and in the work place.
Let me know the time as per your convenience, when we can meet to discuss this in detail and for a demo.
My Best
Madhawi Choudhary
Co-Founder– Hum Point
