Over 150 BYJU'S employees approached the Kerala government on Tuesday alleging that the Edtech company was planning to shut its operations in Kerala's Technopark. The distressed employees alleged they were being forced to resign and had not been given any prior notice.
"The company management is enforcing employees for forceful resignation," Prathidhwani, a welfare organisation of tech sector employees, said in a social media post.
Earlier, BYJU'S issued a statement announcing to lay off 5% of its 50,000-strong workforce in a bid to "rationalise" the structure. Around 2,500 employees are likely to lose their jobs with this overhauling of the company.
Here is all you need to know about the issue:
What happened?
Prathidhwani has alleged that BYJU's is planning to stop its operations from Trivandrum without any prior notice to employees, risking the jobs of over 170 employees working in their centre at Technopark.
On October 12, BYJU's said 5% of the jobs would be cut down in order to achieve profitability targets by march 2023. This, the company said, was being done to "avoid redundancies and duplication of roles".
"As a mature organisation that takes its responsibility towards investors and stakeholders seriously, we aim to ensure sustainable growth alongside strong revenue growth," Mrinal Mohit, CEO of Byju's India business had said in a statement, adding that the "measures" would help the achieve "profitability". It said that 10,000 more teachers would be added to the workforce over the next year.
The company maintained that the measures will not have an impact on its revenue run rate.
"One of the measures is the rationalisation of a maximum of 5 per cent of our 50,000-strong workforce across product, content, media and technology teams in a phased manner," BYJU'S spokesperson had said.
Kerala government intervenes
The employees who are at risk of losing their jobs after the company stops its operations from Trivandrum urged the Kerala government to intervene. The employees reportedly met General Education and Labour Minister for Kerala, V Sivankutty.
Sivankutty took to Facebook to announce that there would be a probe in the matter. His statement, roughly translated to English, reads, "At technopark, Thiruvananthapuram Employees of BYJU'S app met me with the office bearers of IT employees welfare organisation Echo of Technopark. Employees have many complaints, including job losses. The Labor Department will conduct a serious inspection in this matter."
The welfare organisation of techies, Prathidhwani, has demanded that the employees should be paid their salaries for the month of October 2022 on November 1, 2022. They also demanded a "one-time settlement of salary for the upcoming three months", earned leaves' encashment and full settlement of Variable pay.
The BYJU'S has said the company followed the rules during the restructuring.
"We understand that this is a tough situation; so to make this less painful, we have created a dedicated outplacement team who will help the affected employees get a suitable job," BYJU'S spokesperson said.
BYJU's has said that the company is making "every attempt to offer relevant relocation opportunities to the affected employees." "While we are discontinuing a part of our Trivandrum operations to reduce redundancy, we are also offering the entire Trivandrum team an opportunity to relocate to Bengaluru. We have provided them more than a month's time to decide on this matter," BYJU'S spokesperson told BOOM, adding that those who choose not to continue with the company will be offered a "generous and progressive exit package".
"If they choose to not use this opportunity, we have made available a generous and progressive exit package to all employees impacted by the restructuring, including extended health insurance benefits, outplacement services and garden leave. "
The company has assured to rehire the employees within the next 12 months at any operational center across India.
Is BYJU'S in losses?
BYJU'S is one of the top Eddtech startups in the country. However, the company's losses during the financial year 2021 grew significantly. The company faced massive losses of Rs 4,588 crore, up from Rs 262 crore in the last fiscal year. The company had reportedly delayed its financial results which it had said would be released on September 6. It was later served a notice by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs over the delay.
The Bengaluru-based startup is currently valued at $22 billion.
"There was significant business growth in FY 21 over FY 20, but since this is the first year where new revenue recognition started because of a Covid-related business model change, almost 40% of the revenue was deferred to subsequent years," Byju Raveendran, CEO of the Edtech company, was quoted as saying by the Mint after the company clocked losses.