Employees of Byju’s and Prathidwani representatives hand over a memorandum to Labour Minister V Sivankutty on Tuesday
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Byju’s Think and Learn (P) Ltd, a major education app company in the country, is likely to wind up its operations soon in Kerala. The lone development centre in the state, in the Carnival building at Technopark, has already started sacking its employees. They decided to cut down on the number of its employees without issuing any prior notice to them.
More than 170 employees are working at the company’s centre at Technopark and they are at the receiving end. The company’s management is still persuading employees to tender their resignation. However, the state government has intervened in the matter after Prathidwani, the association for the welfare of IT employees in Technopark, called on Labour Minister V Sivankutty last week.
On Tuesday, a meeting led by the labour commissioner was held with employees and Prathidwani representatives, which decided to hold a meeting with the company soon to address the grievances of the employees. The state government has also issued a notice to the company to come up with an explanation.
“It is learnt that over 2,500 employees in the company nationwide were told to resign. It is because of the change in policies of the company It is likely to stop the development of the app and will launch an offline tuition programme in the entire country. As part of that, they are on a recruitment spree to appoint teachers. But here, many employees are in panic and they don’t have sufficient time to find another job,” said a source close to Technopark.
The demands raised by the employees include the payment of the salary for October on November 1; a one-time settlement of salary for the upcoming three months, from November 2022 to January 31, 2023; encashment of all earned leaves; and the full settlement of variable pay (as applicable to each employee).
“One fine morning, the senior officials asked me to resign. There was no official communication from the management. Not only me, but many of the employees also faced this awkward situation. This is unjustifiable. The government has intervened and we hope to receive our payment on time,” said Sujith (name changed).
When contacted, the official spokesperson of Byju’s said the company has decided to reduce its workforce in the country by 5% because of the profitability factor. The decision to ask employees to resign on their own is part of that move, he said.
Employees can relocate to B’luru
According to the company’s spokesperson, Byju’s is making every attempt to offer relevant relocation opportunities to the affected employees. “While we are discontinuing our Thiruvananthapuram operations to reduce redundancy, we are also offering the entire team an opportunity to relocate to Bengaluru. We have provided them more than a month’s time to decide on this matter. If they choose not to continue, we have made available a generous and progressive exit package impacted by the restructuring, including extended health insurance benefits, outplacement services, and garden leave. It even includes an assured opportunity to be rehired by Byju’s within the next 12 months, the spokesperson said.
