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Rojgari Business Plan – April 2019 i

ROJGARI BUSINESS PLAN APRIL 2019

Submitted to: Winrock International, Washington DC Submitted by: SAIS-Winrock Practicum Team 2018-19 DISCLAIMER This plan is made possible by the generous support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of this plan are the sole responsibility of Winrock International and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Rojgari Business Plan – April 2019 ii

The SAIS-Winrock Practicum Team 2018-2019 would like to thank all stakeholders and interviewees who provided time and insights. Any errors and omissions are that of the authors, Olivia (Ya) Gao, Deboleena Rakshit, Michelle LeMeur and Johan Zambrano.

ROJGARI BUSINESS PLAN APRIL 2019

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TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 2 II. BACKGROUND 3

III. ROJGARI SERVICE: AN EMERGING ICT-BASED EMPLOYMENT SOLUTION FOR LOW AND UNSKILLED WORKERS 6 1. BUSINESS MODEL OF THE ROJGARI PASAL 6

A) CORE OPERATION 6 B) CUSTOMER SEGMENT 7

C) PROFITABILITY MODEL 7

2. STRENGTH AND SUCCESS FACTORS 8 A) TRUST-BUILDING THROUGH THE PHYSICAL PRESENCE JOB CENTERS (‘PASAL’) 8

B) SYSTEMIZED CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT 8

3. WEAKNESS AND AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT 9 A) LANGUAGE AND LITERACY BARRIERS 9

B) UNSATISFIED DEMAND FOR FULL-FLEDGED CAREER SERVICE 9

4. THREATS AND RISKS 9 A) UNPREDICTABLE WAIT-TIME FOR JOB PLACEMENTS 9

B) NON-COMPLIANT EMPLOYER BEHAVIOR 10 IV. GROWTH STRATEGIES 10

1. EXPAND MARKET SEGMENTS 10

2. DIVERSIFY SERVICE PORTFOLIO AND REVENUE STREAMS 11

3. DEVELOP A HYBRID OUTREACH STRATEGY 11

4. ENHANCE BRAND-BUILDING 11 5. STRENGTHEN THE PARTNERSHIP WITH RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS ALLIANCE 11

V. MANAGEMENT REQUIREMENT 12

VI. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 12 VII. RECOMMENDATIONS 13

4) MAXIMIZE THE USE OF INFORMAL CHANNELS 14

VIII. CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD 17

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ABBREVIATIONS

CESLAM The Centre for the Study on Labor and Mobility

CV Curriculum Vitae

DoFE Department of Foreign Employment

GCC Gulf Cooperation Council GDP Gross Domestic Product

HR Human Resources

ICT Information and Communications Technology

RBA Responsible Business Alliance

Rojgari Business Plan – April 2019 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In consultation with Rojgari Services Pvt., and 11 other organizations in Kathmandu, this report develops a business strategy to expand services and profitability for the job-matching service. Rojgari (Employment in Nepali) is a sister company of one of Nepal’s largest job sites for white-collar workers. Rojgari focuses on low and unskilled laborers, primarily focusing on sectors such as construction, services, and manufacturing. Rojgari management is excited to expand operations and create a stronger presence based off of the success of Bongpheak, an ICT-based employment service for low and unskilled workers in Cambodia, while also increasing revenue streams to ensure the service’s sustainability. To create this replication, while increasing revenues and ensuring impactful programming, this report details the following suggestions:

• Expanding the current user base: Rojgari has the potential to be a gamechanger in the domestic social enterprises space. Engaging returnee migrant workers and rural job seekers would allow the platform target jobseekers more effectively.

• Diversification of services: Rojgari can offer additional services, such as offering career counseling and sector-specific trainings to attract more users to the platform and build rapport within the target population.

• Hybridization of outreach model: Rojgari can alter its operational model by adopting a heavy online presence. The website currently in use, which only redirects visitors to visit a brick-and-mortar location, should be overhauled to allow users to directly apply to jobs and connect with employers, without visiting a physical location.

• Develop a core brand: Rojgari needs to invest heavily in marketing to ensure it is a recognizable brand within the domestic market and to build trust within its user base to facilitate partnerships that can help the service expand. Rojgari needs to adopt core marketing materials, such as colors, fonts, and multimedia messages (songs, pictures, videos, etc.) to distinguish itself from possible competitors.

• Build partnerships: Rojgari operates within an environment where many other organizations aim to increase opportunities for potential migrants. Partnerships are key for Rojgari to build awareness as well to establish confidence within its user base about its free-for-jobseekers model.

• Adapt Bongpheak-style features: Apart from an interactive website, Rojgari should also engage heavily in developing a virtual CV creator and social media campaigns to enable workers to apply to jobs with minimal inputs from the service. The platform should principally be in the national language (Nepali) with minority language options and audio—visual queues for users with low literacy to create an inclusive platform.

• Financial Modeling: Rojgari management needs to model financial scenarios that lay out clear assumptions and incomes over several years to know when profit and sustainability can be ensured.

The recommendations in this report can help ensure Rojgari expands into a successful, impactful platform. At the heart of this business strategy is the aim of sustainability and self-reliance that can help make Rojgari a game-changer in the Nepali labor market.


I. Introduction With an increasing outflow of the labor force to foreign countries through formal and informal channels every year, Nepal is faced with tremendous challenges in countering human trafficking. Motivated by employment opportunities abroad and the belief that they lack the necessary knowledge and resources to search for jobs locally, thousands of low and unskilled laborers migrate to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Malaysia, while employers in Nepal, on the other hand, experience an insufficient supply of local labor. Traditional information channels, mainly word of mouth (referrals by friends and relatives), fail to narrow the information gap between employers and job-seekers at scale. An information and communications technology (ICT) enabled solution has been identified as a viable approach to overcome the information barrier and to achieve higher efficiency in connecting job-seekers with opportunities that match their skills and expectations. Rojgari Services Pvt Ltd is an existing business that is currently serving low and unskilled laborers in Nepal through the use of an online job announcement portal and physical job centers (‘Pasals’) in four major cities. Its job-matching service, with the support of in-house agents and its model of zero cost to job-seekers, has gained popularity among existing users, albeit not well recognized among grass-roots and civil society organizations. In addition, Rojgari’s growth in market share is constrained by limitations in the scope of marketing, an under-diversified service portfolio, and a single pricing model. A growing number of returnee migrant workers, increased technology access and pre-existing social networks in Nepal indicate significant growth potential for Rojgari. By expanding its market segments, diversifying its services and revenue streams, crafting online and offline outreaching strategies, enhancing brand-building and strengthening partnerships, Rojgari can benefit from emerging opportunities. More specifically, improvements in language provision, online operation, user interface, social media marketing, as well as setting up a feedback and learning mechanism would help upgrade the features and functions on the Rojgari platform. In consultation with Rojgari’s team, this report assesses Rojgari’s business model in the context of countering human trafficking in Nepal, and provides strategic recommendations on achieving growth objectives in the long term. Unique features within this market include:


− Existing Business Models: Existing business models for Nepali workers are dominated by merojobs.com. As the mother company of Rojgari, it is a well-established platform for white-collar jobs in the country, with high recognition from both employers and employees.

− Political and Regulatory Environment: Domestic labor laws in Nepal were recently amended to include greater social protections, including establishing a minimum wage and benefits. However, enforcement of these new mandates rarely materializes. As such, finding employers who are compliant with labor laws is difficult and requires heavy vetting from organizations who wish to match job seekers with potential, compliant opportunities.

− Literacy Challenges: Nepal has low literacy levels, especially amongst low and unskilled workers. This is especially cumbersome for this subset of workers as it limits their upward mobility and hinders their ability to attain new skills that could help in the job search.

− Pay Differentials Domestically vs Abroad: Nepali workers often perceive that wages are higher abroad, thus migrating outside of Nepal is a better economic option. While pay differentials were not validated in the research, this strong belief amongst workers means that most will prefer to search for jobs in Nepal even if there are some economic opportunities domestically. Discussions with the Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility (CESLAM) yielded that there is no empirical work of evidence that validates higher net pay abroad for labor migrants. Nevertheless, many civil-society organizations working with labor migrants echoed that the perception of higher pay, along with a high social premium for working abroad, is still enough to attract workers.

− Gender and Social Inclusion: Labor and migration patterns are subject to gender. Women are barred from migrating outside of the country for work opportunities, so many would go through India and then forward to their destination country. The process results in undocumented migration for Nepali women, which further limits their resource to legal help if needed. Women also work in specific sectors within and outside Nepal. Technology access is also gendered, with women-focused CSOs stressing that women in households are often second-hand users of technology. For example, women in households use smartphones through male family members and are not equitable users. Furthermore, caste and other ethnic divisions remain as barriers to inclusion in the labor market.

II. Background 1. Labor Market in Nepal Nepal has been a labor supply country for regional and international labor markets. The percentage of workers’ remittances that make up Nepal’s GDP doubled since 2004 and reached


32% in 2016. 1 In other labor source countries such as the Philippines, migrant workers’ remittances only account for 10% of total GDP2. This comparison points to Nepal as a unique country among low-income countries, with a significantly high level of foreign employment in its total labor force.3 In 2015, Nepal adopted a new constitution which defines a federal government structure, under which all the local governments are obliged to collect data on the unemployed population and link them to the job markets within Nepal. However, the limited capacity of local governments means that municipalities are not able to satisfy the demand of job-seekers. In fact, the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) of Nepal issued over 3.5 million labor permits for more than 100 countries between 2008 and 2017,4 among which Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Malaysia are the top destinations of Nepali migrant workers. A typical low and unskilled job seeker migrates abroad for opportunities in manufacturing, security, service/hospitality, construction, and domestic 5 sectors. In the process of foreign migration, laborers rely on recruitment agencies or unregistered sub-agents to obtain information on overseas jobs, and are further exposed to the risk of human trafficking at different stages of their job-search journey due to unethical practices of middlemen and absence of awareness among employers in the destination country. The motivation to migrate abroad mainly lies in the perception that they lack necessary job search knowledge and resources despite experience and high qualifications, also in the belief that they cannot afford the high cost of living in urban cities where jobs are concentrated, such as Kathmandu. In many cases, migrant workers report that they can save much more money while working and living abroad without close relatives or friends to be taken care of, even though they may be paid the same salaries. In addition, migrant workers also find themselves much more respected abroad even though they perform the same type of work as in Nepal. As identified by the latest research of the CESLAM, structural factors such as low social status associated with working in the low and unskilled sector (especially in the service/entertainment industry for women labors6) in Nepal encourage them to seek opportunities in other countries.

1 Nepal Labor Market Update, ILO, 2017 2 World Bank Indicator Database. 3 World Bank Indicator Database. 4 Nepalese Labor Migration—A Status Report, Asia Foundation, 2018 6 Giovanna Gioli, Amina Maharjan, and Manju Gurung (2017) Neither Heroines Nor Victims: Women Migrant Workers and Changing Family and Community Relations in Nepal.


To encourage local employment, a new Labor Act was introduced by the Nepali government in 2017, which officially recognized domestic work as a form of employment. It also amended provisions of social protections, including establishing the standards for minimum wage and benefits. Nonetheless, the deep-rooted misperceptions on the lack of opportunities and satisfactory benefits persist among job-seekers, while employers hold the belief that there is a scarcity of labor supply. Until now, both employers and job-seekers still depend on informal channels such as word of mouth from friends, relatives, and current employees to obtain information on the labor market, resulting in greater information asymmetry. 2. Rationale of ICT-Enabled Solution to Local Employment

In order to bridge the information gap between employers and job-seekers in low and unskilled job sectors, an innovative solution is needed. In countries like Cambodia and the Philippines, ICT-based solutions have notable successes in linking the two groups, owing to the efficiency and transparency embedded in information technologies. In the search for similar solutions in the Nepali context, a feasible model should accommodate not only an ideal channel of information dissemination, but also cater to the characteristics of the potential migrant job-seekers, so that it can be easily accepted, adopted, and accessed. Currently, the main channel of job announcements in low and unskilled sectors is word of mouth, through relatives and friends. Some job applicants have attempted to approach human resource (HR) companies but are discouraged by the huge amount of up-front fees and the implied connections they need to build with the staff in the HR company in order to land a job. Their exposure to the use of ICT in job searching is very limited, although they have regular access to Wi-Fi and modest access to mobile data for internet and social media such as Facebook, Emo, WhatsApp, and Viber. Given these above-mentioned conditions, it is feasible to develop an ICT enabled solution that is available to job-seekers at zero cost while also taking into consideration the informal communication channels among the job-seeker communities. Based on consultation with Rojgari Services, an existing human resource business in Nepal, in addition to interviews with focus groups of female and male migrant workers, focus groups of candidates currently using Rojgari Services, as well as with interviews with local employers in the construction and electrical engineering sector, the following sections will develop a potential business model for Rojgari, identify its strengths, weaknesses, areas for change and improvement,


and provide recommendations on growth strategies and potential features to be included in the platform. III. Rojgari Service: An Emerging ICT-Based Employment Solution for Low

and Unskilled Workers Established in 2012, Rojgari Services Pvt Ltd is an employment service provider in Nepal, with a mission to connect low and unskilled job-seekers to local employment opportunities. Its sister company, Merojobs, is a well-recognized online job portal with a focus on skilled, white-collar workers. Rojgari currently operates in two lines of business, human resource (HR) outsourcing and job-matching. In the HR outsourcing sector, Rojgari takes contracts from companies and manages the entire recruitment process, including job announcement, candidate screening, interview coordination, employment contract provision, payroll arrangements, etc. This service is completely off-line and is mainly offered to employers with multiple job positions to be filled at one time. In the job-matching sector, Rojgari links candidates with employers through its physical job centers in four major cities, including Kathmandu, Butwal, Itahari and Pokhara. It allows job-seekers to access various employment opportunities and bridges the information gap between job applicants and employers. Rojgari has branded this service as ‘Rojgari Pasal’, as and ‘Pasal’ means ‘shop’ (together both mean ‘Employment Shop’) 1. Business Model of the Rojgari Pasal

a) Core Operation The physical job centers are at the core of Rojgari operations. Job-seekers can register themselves in the candidate system with the assistance of career consultants at any one of the Rojgari Pasals to document the information on their background, qualification, skills and experience. The consultant helps them prepare CVs in a standardized format, which can be used to apply for multiple opportunities. The Rojgari Pasal also supports the set-up of interviews or meetings between candidates and employers, although it is not directly involved in interviewing or preparing candidates for interviews. One consultant/agent usually manages tens or hundreds of applicants through a proprietary dashboard and tracks their progress on a regular basis.


The Rojgari online job portal, however, only offers basic information on a few employment opportunities (company, position, location, salary range, required qualifications, food and accommodation provision), and asks the website visitor to call or visit the physical centers in person if they are interested in applying. It is greatly different from a similar ICT platform in Cambodia (Bongpheak), which offers a one-stop online service package, including job announcements, CV preparation, job application, and follow-up communications through its job portal. Bongpheak works with mobile network operators to send automated calls to job applicants to inform them about their application updates and ask about their preferences of contact time. Existing workers can also refer their friends and families to available opportunities announced in the Bongpheak platform or its Facebook homepage. b) Customer Segment As Rojgari Pasal focuses exclusively on creating linkages between low and unskilled job-seekers and domestic blue-collar employment opportunities, there is yet to be any differentiation between the services offered to candidates and employers in the manufacturing, service and domestic sectors. Additionally, given its physical locations in four major cities, users are concentrated in urban areas and share similar economic status, level of information, technology access, and social networks.

c) Profitability Model Employers pay Rojgari for the service provided if the candidate passes the interview and receives an employment offer, whereas the job-seeker does not need to pay any fees or commission throughout the entire recruitment process. According to the Rojgari team, this stream of revenue generates very slim returns on their investment, and Rojgari has to rely on the HR outsourcing revenues to sustain its business. Nonetheless, both the Rojgari management team and job-seekers view the free access to job information as a necessary practice of ethical recruitment and believe that such a practice is what makes Rojgari stand out from other HR companies in the market that charge commissions as high as few months of salary. d) Comparison with a Similar Platform in Cambodia Bongpheak is a Cambodia-based online job-matching platform launched in 2015. Similar to Rojgari, its mission is to improve the flow of information between employers and potential workers in the low and unskilled sector. It uses a hybrid model which includes Facebook, referrals from relatives and friends, phone call follow-ups, and a web portal, in order to reach the population at risk more effectively.


In response to the low number of applications due to the lack of CVs, Bongpheak integrated a CV creator in its online platform so that job-seekers can easily fill in their information and apply directly with a standardized CV on the website. In addition, to address the challenge of low response rate by candidates to interview requests, Bongpheak also added the contact time preference in their follow-up calls with candidates, which allows job-seekers to indicate what times and methods are best for employers to get in contact with them.

2. Strength and Success Factors

a) Trust-Building through the Physical Presence Job Centers (‘Pasal’) Given the prevalence of informal means of information dissemination (via friends and relatives) among low and unskilled workers, the human interface at the Rojgari pasals helps to eliminate the mistrust of technologies and creates a trusted relationship between the platform and users when they are introduced to this new service for the first time. As pointed out by many job-seekers in the focus group discussions, their previous interactions with other HR agencies, who charge them membership fees or commissions, and their prior experiences in dealing with fraudulent online job announcement would have led them to assume that Rojgari follows the same path if it were to present itself only as an online job portal. However, the use of job centers where job applicants can visit and talk to the consultants effectively dispels their concerns. Moreover, job applicants who get employed with the support of Rojgari Pasals have shown a strong willingness to recommend friends and relatives to use this service, making it easier to onboard more customers and building the brand.

b) Systemized Customer Engagement Prior to connecting candidates with employers, collecting information on the candidate’s background, qualification and experience plays a critical role in systemizing and digitizing the candidate profile. Job-seekers are asked to disclose details on their background, education, skills and experience when they visit the pasals, and the consultants will help them import such data into the Rojgari database. It not only helps to better inform employers about their applicants, but also provides added value to the lower-end of the customer group who might not be fully aware of the benefits of streamlined information presentation in their job-searching process.


One of the challenges often mentioned by job-seekers is that, they do not always know how to demonstrate and market their skills to employers, despite having relevant experience and qualifications. With the assistance of consultants, candidates are able to formalize their experience in a way that is desired by employers. In addition, when candidates return for other job opportunities, Rojgari consultants can easily find their records in the database, and thus minimize operation cost and improve system efficiency.

3. Weakness and Areas for Improvement a) Language and Literacy Barriers On the online job portal, all the job-related information is currently displayed in English, and not available in Nepali or other local languages. The Rojgari team pointed out that major technical difficulties came from the mismatched length between the English expression and Nepali translation of job descriptions, along with special terms that would even make it more obscure to read if translated. Consequently, the only interface where the illiterate or semi-literate population can access the job information is the Rojgari pasals, which, so far, have only been set up in four major cities. These language and literacy barriers have significantly limited the scope of outreach and social impacts of Rojgari. b) Unsatisfied Demand for Full-Fledged Career Service Rojgari’s standard service package offered to both candidates and employers has not fulfilled the needs of different customers, as indicated by the focus-group interviews. Returnee migrant workers seeking jobs in Nepal have expressed their demand for job-specific trainings, as they found that the skills they acquired abroad need to be customized or adapted in the Nepali context. Additionally, job seekers also have demonstrated strong interests in more comprehensive career counseling services beyond setting up their profiles in the database, including but not limited to tailored trainings for interview preparations, salary negotiations, labor right protections and financial management.

4. Threats and Risks

a) Unpredictable Wait-Time for Job Placements Once the job application is submitted, job seekers will go through a waiting period which varies from one-week to one month. The uncertainties around the application timeline jeopardize the customer confidence and loyalty to Rojgari, and will eventually lead to a loss in the market share to other competitors if they offer quicker solutions. To overcome such barriers, it is critical to set up expectations with job seekers in terms of the timeframe and steps involved in the entire recruitment processes. Moreover, jobs with a specified


recruitment timeline (3-day, 7-day, etc.) can be highlighted in the job announcement to cater to the demand of urgent job-seekers. b) Non-Compliant Employer Behavior Employers do not always comply with the employee agreements after they have selected candidates from the Rojgari database. Cases reported include the delay of salary payment, deducted payment, extra working hours, additional duties and responsibilities, etc. There is currently a lack of a monitoring system in place to oversee the post-recruitment management practice. Constant feedback collection or complaint resolution enabled by a more user-friendly interface should also be factored into the improvement of Rojagri platform.

IV. Growth Strategies

1. Expand Market Segments a) Returnee Migrant Workers

CSOs and grass-root organizations, such as National Network for Safe Migration, Porhaki, PNCC, AMKAS, that are serving the survivors of trafficking and working on the reintegration of returnees into their communities, can provide valuable knowledge and resources for Rojgari to engage with returnee migrant workers. As many of these CSOs are not aware of Rojgari’s job-matching services, they are only able to develop their small-scale programs to train the job-seekers and to connect them with employers within their limited network. Reaching out to these organizations can create a win-win partnership for Rojgari.

b) Job Seekers in Rural Areas

Given high costs of setting up new branches, Rojgari is not capable of physical expansion into rural areas where there is a sizeable demand for low and unskilled jobs among the population. It is, however, still viable to reach this target group via the combined use of traditional family and friends connections and social media. Rojgari can benefit from the integration of referral reward/bonus in its business model, which will effectively incentivize existing users to refer their relatives and friends while operating at a relatively low cost. Another possible method of reaching rural job-seekers is through a “mobile pasal” activity. Rojgari workers could identify rural areas with high numbers of low and unskilled unemployed workers and establish a one-day mobile workshop, where one or two career counselors visit a rural township for a day and work with rural jobseekers


to establish links and initiate the job-matching process. After initial contact, jobseekers can reach back out to Rojgari’s career counselors to continue the job-matching process.

2. Diversify Service Portfolio and Revenue Streams To respond to the underserved demand for other career services, Rojgari can develop career counselling programs and sector/job-specific skill trainings, which will leverage its prior experience in the HR consulting industry, while generating another source of revenue aside from the fees charged to employers. The career counselling program should be customized to the needs of job-seekers, including but not limited to interview preparation, salary and benefit negotiation, resources for skills and qualification. This program should be structured as basic and free packages, along with advanced packages for sale. Rojgari can also consider partnering with skill training centers or employers to offer tailor-made courses to job-seekers who will receive the certificate at the end of the program.

3. Develop a Hybrid Outreach Strategy As most of the current outreach activities are planned and implemented by the off-line teams based in the pasals, which, in itself is constrained by the physical scope, Rojgari can leverage the use of online platform in not only announcing job opportunities, but also facilitating candidate registration, and processing the application, if combined with other complementary means of communication such as voice messages, text messages, and social media messages.

4. Enhance Brand-Building The core social impact of Rojgari service is its ethical recruitment model of zero cost to job-seekers in the low and unskilled job sector, which is well appreciated by the existing users. Rojgari should take advantage of this positive image among the public and build its unique brand as the ethical employment service provider in the market. Such efforts would also help the platform become a trusted service for referrals who are told about Rojgari through friends and/or family.

5. Strengthen the Partnership with Responsible Business Alliance Rojgari is a member company of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), which is a nationwide association promoting responsible business practice among employers. To encourage employers to abide by national employment regulations and mitigate the risks of labor abuse at the post-recruitment stage, Rojgari should leverage the RBA platform to


advocate for best practices and work with RBA on metrics that will help improve the screening mechanism of ethical employers among the existing employers in its customer base.

V. Management Requirement As proved by the Bongpheak experience, strong marketing and business development arms bring enormous benefits to the growth and expansion of its core business. Against head-to-head competition with other human resource companies, building a long-term and sustainable relationship with employers and prospective candidates are essential to the internal management practice. Although Rojgari has already put in place a small team responsible for outreaching and marketing, its effectiveness is yet to be strengthened, given the resources needed to expand into other cities and regions in Nepal. VI. Financial Management Rojgari’s current business model is based on a pay-by-employee-hired basis. Current revenues are not satisfactory for Rojgari’s financial sustainability. As a result, other payment models may be more useful in increasing revenue and helping Rojgari expand in market share. In particular, Rojgari should explore a “subscription” service for employers, especially larger companies who depend regularly on the Rojgari to recruit workers. A monthly fee should be levied on such employers per X number of recruitments a month. Rojgari can adjust this fee depending on how difficult they asses the recruitment process to be and how many recruitments within a specified month. This subscription model could be especially helpful for Rojgari in managing financial projections, as well as simplify negotiations with employers. Another potential model to explore should focus on developing other lines of business that will enable Rojgari to benefit from a higher revenue margin. As the market of job-seekers is growing, their demand is also moving from basic connecting service to more advanced and customized/individualized services such as career counselling and tutoring. Tapping into this model of service will allow Rojgari to enhance its financial viability and generate a more promising projection in future cash flows from operation, compared to the single-revenue model. The next step for Rojgari to alter its business model is to develop a financial mode that lays out clear assumptions about the business environment. The model should calculate income on a


monthly basis and determine when in the future the business will become both profitable and sustainable. VII. Recommendations Given the abovementioned areas for improvement, we propose the following recommendations to upgrade the existing service that would help to scale up its impacts. 1) Mobilize Returnee Migrant Workers

Among the current users of Rojgari services, returnee migrant workers are under-represented despite their advantages in experience, skills and work ethic. As the Nepal government is prioritizing local employment creation, returnee migrant workers are expected to generate a huge demand for job opportunities. Engaging with returnee migrants who have established businesses to hire new employees through Rojgari (possibly at a free or discounted rate) can create a new source of credibility for the platform. Partnerships and/or endorsements with other grassroots organizations, such as the National Network for Safe Migration, can help build Rojagri’s credibility to job seekers who are doubtful about the Rojgari platform. The challenge, however, remains as to how to attract them to stay in Nepal instead of migrating abroad again.

2) Increase Online Usage

To improve the efficiency of job-matching services and cater to the demand for user friendliness, Rojgari should change the existing online presence to an interactive model where jobseekers can not only find job openings, but also directly apply, like what is offered by the Bongpheak platform in Cambodia.

a) Language: It is essential that Rojgari move towards a Nepali style language platform, and possibly incorporate minority language options, such as those present in the Terai region. Although the team expressed difficulty in coding in Nepali, the language change is essential to resolve if the platform wants to reach beyond the current pasal model. In order to overcome the language and literacy barriers, human-centered technology approaches, such as voice contents and animations that are easy to understand without having to read in English, can be alternative solutions aside from making the job portal accessible in local languages.

b) CV creator tool: A CV creator tool can help both mainstream Rojagari’s model processes and also facilitate the job application process for job seekers who do not wish to visit a pasal in-person. An online CV creator tool can assist job seekers before they visit Rojgari’s physical locations and give information to Rojgari’s screeners before consultations with the job seeker. Likewise, the CV creator tool can enable job seekers


to independently apply to jobs through the platform, without the need for physical screenings by Rojgari employees.

c) User Interface: The development of a Rojgari-phone application is recommended to make the platform more compatible with extensive use of smartphones in Nepal. Users would have an easier time accessing a platform with the above features above if the platform were available through an application, rather than a website. Furthermore, an application could develop a more audio-visual interface to address illiteracy challenges for some job seekers. Taking advantage of job seeker’s heavy usage of Facebook and other social media platforms despite illiteracy challenges, the platform could rely on recorded guides as instructions to use the application. It can further facilitate the post-placement relationship management, including constant review and feedback from both employers and employees.

d) Learning Platform: To address a common complaint from Nepali employers, Rojgari could use the online platform as a cost-effective method to deliver job know-how trainings to low and unskilled employees. These trainings will focus on teaching applicants what attitudes are best to communicate to employers about their seriousness for a specific opportunity and how to demonstrate it. The learning platform could use YouTube-formatted videos to offer short lessons on cordiality, timeliness, and interview etiquette.

3) Leverage Social Media for Marketing Facebook and social media integration app integration are necessary to market the application’s features and opportunities. With heavy usage of Facebook, Emo, Whatsapp and Viber amongst low and unskilled job seekers, but little knowledge of job platforms outside personal networks, social media interventions are essential to raising awareness about Rojgari’s services. Specifically, Rojgari should use updates or “posts” with specific job opportunities on Facebook. These posts should be both written and also include a voice component to reach audiences with low literacy levels. The posts should direct workers to the Rojgari website to apply to the specific opportunity of interest, or suggest that the audience forward the post or message to a person for whom the opportunity is appealing, including through other messaging applications like WhatsApp or Emo. Rojgari could also benefit from deploying these tools to interact with potential job-seekers at a lower cost, compared to the traditional use of billboards or printed advertisements in brand marketing. 4) Maximize the Use of Informal Channels As indicated by both employers and job-seekers in low and unskilled job sectors, the major source of candidate information is still informal networks such as word of mouth. It is unlikely that this informal channel of information will be replaced by new business models or technologies


in a short period of time. Instead, it offers an ideal supplementary to the formal services provided by Rojgari. In fact, many candidates have referred their friends and families to Rojgari’s platform. Maximizing the utility of informal networks can bring additional value to Rojgari in terms of customer acquisition and trust enhancement. This can be further facilitated through the social media campaigns that encourages candidates to share job posts within their networks both online and offline. 5) Informational Flyer Below is an informational flyer Rojgari could use to explain how it’s platform can be used by workers. The flyer should be altered as the brand grows, and include Rojgari’s color scheme and any special logos developed. Additionally, the flyer can further expanded by including well-known employers Rojgari works with and/or snippets including success stories of low and unskilled workers finding high-quality employment. Ideally, the flyer would be spread through Facebook and WhatsApp campaigns, with accompanying voice components to read the material for low-literacy audiences. The flyer should also be in Nepali.


Sample flyer to serve as promotional material for Rojgari.


VIII. Challenges and the Way Forward To materialize improvements and pave away forward in the short-to-medium term, there are several challenges to be addressed. 1. Transition to a Hybrid Model: Rojgari is currently limited to helping job seekers who are

able to enter one of four physical locations in the cities. Rojgari’s current online presence simply serves to redirect job seekers to one of its physical locations. As Rojgari begins to expand its online presence by incorporating the suggested technology above into its platform, Rojgari should initially move towards a hybrid model that utilizes both the pasals and its online platform. As such, the platform could target job seekers who are literate and have the knowledge of how to apply to jobs autonomously without the need for much guidance from Rojgari personnel. At the same time, the physical locations can cater to job seekers who need further help with the job matching process. As Rojgari matures and the platform becomes more established within the Nepali job market, a transition can occur towards a solely online base. However, this should only occur after Rojgari has become well known in the Nepali job market. Initially, a hybrid model is best to reach both populations of potential users.

2. Marketing and Brand Recognition: Heavy marketing efforts need to be made in order to be make Rojgari a recognizable name amongst the target user population. As in Bongpheak, the development of recognizable colors, characters, and media campaigns can help the platform build a strong, well-known base.

3. Human Resource Costs: The expansion of a Rojgari online platform needs to consider the heavy human inputs required to develop a successful platform. Given the hybrid model suggestion, Rojgari needs to either secure sufficient donor funding or raise enough profit from its current model to afford the necessary human capital in the short term. From BP’s experience, 7 different managers were necessary to take the platform online (a Software Developer, Customer Support Manager, Commercial Manager, Communications Manager, Business Development Manager Project Manager, and a part-time Research Manager). However, Rojgari is likely to already have some of these inputs within its current business model – for example, as a technology company, software development managers are likely already employed – thus allowing Rojgari to expand its online presence with some cost savings.

4. Technical Expertise Needed to Enable an Interactive-User Interface: As mentioned above, literacy rates in Nepal are challenging to an online platform that depends on text to interact with prospective job seekers. Rojgari should also develop a more audio-visual


interface to allow job seekers with low literacy levels to use the platform. For example, job postings over Facebook or on the website can have a voice recording that can be easily shared through other instant messaging applications. It, however, requires huge inputs in developing in-house technical expertise.

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