Byju's employees asked to resign voluntarily as company begins silent layoffs to save costs

By Divyanshi SharmaThe last couple of months have been hard on a lot of techies as major IT giants like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others announced large-scale layoffs to grapple with the present economic conditions. And now, edtech startup Byju’s is making headlines for asking people to resign as tensions with lenders rise.

Earlier this month, an ET report had revealed that Byju’s was planning to layoff around 1,000 employees in order to cut costs. “It is no surprise that Byju’s is looking to cut costs now, especially when growth has completely stalled, and the focus for them is on building a hybrid play with (test-prep subsidiary) Aakash. It seems like a hybrid strategy is one of the last straws left for online edtech as it gets harder to sell online courses,” a person who is familiar with the matter had told ET at the time.

However, a Moneycontrol report now says that when worried employees had approached HR earlier after reading reports of Byju’s planning layoffs, they were told that nothing of the sorts had been planned.

Byju’s asks employees to resign voluntarily

According to a Moneycontrol report, Byju’s is carrying out layoffs but in a silent manner. The employees are being asked to resign voluntarily and their email addresses are being blocked.

The report reveals that Byju’s HR team called up the affected employees and also held in-person meetings with them on Friday last week, informing them about the layoffs. Various departments such as sales, post-sales, finance, training, mentoring and logistics have been affected by the decision.

The employees, after the calls and meetings, were asked to resign voluntarily via the official HR portal of the company, the people told Moneycontrol, requesting to be anonymous. Moreover, their email addresses were deactivated, and they were asked to surrender their official ID cards.

Some employees were told about the layoffs on June 14.

No prior communication

“Employees were told on Friday (June 16) that it would be their last working day. There was no prior communication. Following some reports in the media, employees were constantly asking the HR and their managers if there would be any layoffs but we heard there wouldn’t be any,” a source told Moneycontrol.

”After almost every development, employees get a mail from Byju Raveendran, where he says there won’t be any more layoffs, the company is doing great, etc. But since October, there have been at least two major rounds of layoffs, this included” the source added.

Another source told the publication that around 1,000 employees will be affected and those in senior roles, who have spent over 2 years at the organisation, are at a greater risk.

Meanwhile, Byju’s declined to comment on the matter.

The laid-off employees will get two months salary as severance and their full and final settlement should reach them by September-October, or about 45 days after July. After this, no extra severance will be given by the company, the Moneycontrol report states.