Rozgar : UX Case Study (Jan 2022)

This Case study includes Research and understanding of the online and offline market of Blue collar workers

Who’s considered a Blue collar worker?

Blue Collar Work consist of manual labour, educational requirement are typically lower are compared with white collar, wage is mainly hourly basis or sometimes lump sum. There is no requirement to have any diploma as the skills learned are while working.

Includes: Construction, Welder, Warehousing, maintenance, Electricity generation, Pest control, Farm labours, waste collection.

High paid blue collar works: Electricians, Plumbers.

User Research Questions

User Research Questions

Q1. How do you define your work? or What your work includes?

Q2. How do you usually get work? and have you ever used online platform for getting job?

Follow up question:

1. Please explain your experience with those jobs. Either online or offline.
2. Among online and offline, which one do you prefer the most and explain why.

Q3. Do you know anyone who has had experience with the online platforms. If so how was there experience?

Q4. When usually getting a job in any of the way, how do you know that you can trust that person.

Follow up question:

1. If there is an app that could help you get jobs from around the place, what are your thoughts on that.

Research Participants

I Interviewed three participants working in different backgrounds. It was an in-person interviews that I recorded for later reference. In order to understand the pain-points I tried to derivate their context what they Say — think — do — hear

Participant One — Electrician

1. Age — 35
2. He’s an independent worker. Though he also works in group for certain projects/contracts. His skills are majorly into electrician jobs but he is also into other works like cutting marbles and
3. Has applied to consultancy firm for small jobs (commission basis). They call when there is a job for them. Big jobs are very rare in those places.
4. Though he earns more from word of mouth as compared to consultancy firms. Big contracts are given through word of mouth only.
5. Must know the length of work and price before accepting the offer. Though if the client don’t know the length of work he helps the gathering those details as well.
6. Happy to negotiate but only upto an extent. Doesn’t like to work with same clients who were mean about paying the negotiated amount. Clients also sometimes don’t pay in full and take a very long time to earn the pay he earned.
7. Loves to work for free as a gesture to some people as well.
8. Likes to have cash in hand. Though he says/knows that money is spent less when received in bank.

Participant Two — Helps in delivery of construction material

1. Age — 27
2. Holds a smartphone but doesn’t know how to use that much, he knows people by numbers. Though he has saved few numbers with help. He uses smartphone for listening to music and calling mostly.
3. Works at construction trading shop. Delivers construction material. Says he can also repair the the tractor he uses in case of default between transit. The skills seems not much defined though he says he can drive many vehicles.
4. Can work anywhere where he can earn money from. He always believe in clients honesty, his trust gets stronger with the number of time he works with the respective client.
5. Believes in negotiation with client (regarding payment) but has a limit he’s not cross. But in certain cases works for less as well.
6. Believes independent work can pay more than a job. Says he’s happy to switch if such thing happens.

Participant Three — Warehouse worker

1. Age 24
2. Got the job through a relatives recommendation.
3. Works as at warehouse where he helps in loading and unloading of pallets in the trucks. He scans the pallets when they are unloaded.
4. He tries to do overtime in order to get paid more but he does not earn much within overtimes.
5. He doesn’t know anyone who has found job through online and have not tried that. mostly relies on connections to when finding jobs. Though he had talked to different shops if he could help them in their store but he left empty handed.

Research Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-collar_worker (Understanding Blue Collar work)

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/multimedia/jobs/india-inc-to-create-7-million-blue-collar-jobs-by-the-end-of-this-fiscal/articleshow/85616431.cms?from=mdr (Job Demands Aug 2021)

https://ezjobs.io/11-creative-ways-to-hire-blue-collar-workers-in-india/ (How to hire blue collar Workers)

Pain Points

1. Not aware if jobs available online. They are only familiar with word of mouth work and few know about agencies that charge commissions from them for every job they get paid for.
2. Not familiar with the potentials of smartphones, though they have and use them everyday. Mostly for calling, taking photos and listening to music.
3. For independent workers it was hard to find job when they there is no work from known clients.
4. Living cost of city is very high and are paid very less to maintain healthy lifestyle. Many have to take advances from employers and loans from a friend or give loan to friends. Specially in these covid times.
5. Employer or Client negotiate a lot which is usually very less and sometimes they have to drop the project.

Persona

Hariram is from a small village in Rajasthan and in search of better pay and better lifestyle he has arrived Gurgaon in about 7 years ago, now he’s married and has one kid. He has learned his skills through experience, by working under other electricians. Similarly he’s good in other jobs as well like drilling and cutting tiles and marble and he can also welding as well (as he claims). Though he is good in other skills, electrical is what he follows passionately. He is an independent worker and he gets work mostly through word of mouth. He has also applied to a agency that calls him if there is job related to his expertise.

Goals:

1. To have good paid jobs.
2. To have good staying house.
3. To get to go to job everyday.

Frustrations:

1. Client did not acknowledge the price surge when the work requirements got changed.
2. Client said to pay the rest of the amount later.
3. Client negotiated the price after work is done.

Problem Statements

1. Sagar is Blue collar independent worker he needs a job because he wants to make his day to day earnings.
2. Bharat is a blue collar worker working for a trader, he needs a better source for his income because he is not happy with the money he is making at his place
3. Hariram is a blue collar worker working as a electrician, he needs to increase his earning frequency because with the current frequency he has to take loan in order to fulfil his family need.
4. Sangam is a blue collar worker and he needs an easy and simple platform to receive jobs because he does not know much about using smartphone and uses someone’s help even to submit numbers.
5. Bhima is an independent plumber with 5 years experience who needs to know the length of work before hand because he doesn’t have his bike license and pollution done. He doesn’t want to get caught with police again when traveling to the client’s place.

User Journey Map

Competitor Analysis

Creating Digital Experience

Crazy 8 Sketches

Initial Wireframes

https://www.figma.com/proto/I42lCRSFRSsTKKh3sR5Wvf/Rojgar?embed_host=notion&kind=&node-id=1-3&page-id=0%3A1&scaling=scale-down&starting-point-node-id=1%3A3&viewport=303%2C48%2C0.4

High Fidelity Wireframes

Future Implementation

How might we implement an option for Independent workers to put quotes or bids over services and will it solve the bigger issue of being them unemployed for a significant period of time.