Swiggy, an Indian online food delivery app has announced that it will be laying off around 1100 of its employees to absorb the impact of coronavirus pandemic.
In a blog post, the company revealed that it will scale down businesses that are not going to be relevant for the next 18 months. They have also stated that the company will provide financial, emotional, and career-related support to the impacted employees.
Swiggy co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety said in the blog post that the HR team and managers will have one on one conversations with the impacted employees and will provide them further details.
The employees will receive communication from their managers about the continuity of their roles in Swiggy.
He also said that despite being impacted heavily due to COVID, Swiggy is at an “inflection point for the penetration of digital commerce and home delivery in India.” This pushes the company to further invest in the grocery and other essential services that will continue to do well in the days to come.
“In line with the above business decisions, we, unfortunately, have to part ways with 1100 of our employees spanning across grades and functions in the cities and head office over the next few days.
“This is easily the hardest and longest deliberate decision the management team and I have been faced with over recent times. We have been fortunate to have some of the brightest missionary talents in the country join us over the last few years, and I would like to state unequivocally that this is not at all a reflection of anyone’s performance,” Majety said in a blog.
Srihasha also revealed that the worst affected business is the cloud kitchens businesses. “Since the onset of COVID, we have already begun the process of shutting down our kitchen facilities temporarily or permanently, depending on their outlook and profitability profile.
“We are already operating at significantly lower levels on our staffing and physical infra than our earlier footprint, and will continue to optimize before we get more clarity on order volumes for food delivery,” he said in a blog.
All the impacted employees in Swiggy will receive at least 3 months of salary irrespective of their notice period or tenure. The company will provide an “extra month of ex-gratia to employees in addition to their notice period pay, working out to between 3-8 months of salary depending on the tenure.”
Swiggy has also said that it will provide medical support to all the laid-off employees till December 31, 2020. They will also help the employees in finding new jobs. The employees will be allowed to keep their work-allocated laptops and get mobile communication allowance for the next three months for better connectivity.
Swiggy will also reimburse the travel and relocation expenses for employees who had changed cities to work with the company. The blog post shared by Swiggy was sent out to all the employees of Swiggy on May 18, 2020, by the co-founder and CEO.
Swiggy isn’t the only company impacted due to COVID-19, earlier, its rival in India, Zomato had laid off around 13 percent of its workforce. They had also announced temporary pay cuts of employees of up to 50 percent and a major shift to remote working.
