Udaan, a Bangalore based B2B ecommerce platform has fired thousands of its contractual staffers this week. Based on employee reports, the communication related to their terminations landed in their emails starting 23rd April through 24th April. The layoffs have impacted employees in sales, credit, collection team, and the delivery team. As of now there are no reports related to termination of on roll employees.
Employees were issued termination letters without any prior notice. As per an employee, over 200 employees have been sacked, with employees being fired with immediate effect. According to sources however, this number could run in thousands, across Udaan’s pan India operations.
The email from manpower service provider ALK Talent Search to an employee reads – ” We regret to inform you that you that your contract will be terminated effective today i.e, April 24, 2020.”
The termination letter from Teamlease, a leading staffing company, to an employee deployed with Hiveloop Technology Pvt Ltd (Udaan), says: ” We inform you that, due to the closure of the project assigned to you, your employment with Teamlease Services Limited will come to an end with effect from 24th April 2020.”
It is understood that the terminated employees have been given 1 months gross salary as separation pay, along with payment of all dues till 24th April 2020. Employees will continue to have medical insurance coverage for 3 months post separation.
Udaan has been one of the fastest ones from Indian start-up ecosystem to get to a unicorn status. The company was foudned by former Flipkart executives Vaibhav Gupta, Amod Malviya and Sujeet Kumar. Udaan offers a trade platform that connects manufacturers, traders, retailers, and wholesalers. The company had most recently landed up a $ 585 million funding in October 2019 led by Tencent, Altimeter Capital, Hillhouse Capital, GGV Capital, Footpath Ventures and Citi Ventures with a participation from its existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global. This round had valued the company at about $ 2.8 billion. In its earlier round Udaan had raised $ 225 million from DST Global and Lightspeed in September 2018. Earlier in 2019, the company had also received a Non Banking Financial Company (NBFC) license, allowing it to disburse loans to retailers and sellers.
The employee frustration on social media hints at the fact that the company had landed up a reasonable funding in 2019, and may not have had reasons to terminate employees at such short notice and amidst the pressures of pandemic. An employee mentioned that the company could have announced paycuts to tide over short term crisis, however terminations were unwarranted. A good number of employees are coming up with their thoughts on these terminations on a newly created twitter handle (https://twitter.com/EmployeesUdaan), to speak out their side of the story.
Note: If you or some one your know has been affected by these layoffs, or similar layoffs / decisions affecting employees, in other companies you are welcome to share details ( your side of story and additional details) with us. If you represent the employer, and want to present your view point please write to us. You may connect with us at newsdesk@hrnxt.com.
HrNxt.com Newsdesk has researchers and writers with an excellent domain knowledge about the talent ecosystem, and the business environment. The team keeps a tab on the latest happenings in the ecosystem to bring most relevant news and insights for our readers. You can connect with our newsdesk at newsdesk@hrnxt.com.