JOIN USOla gearing up for more layoffs than revealed
Ride-sharing and mobility platform Ola will lay off nearly 500 members of its engineering team, a person familiar with the matter told DH on condition of anonymity. While the Bengaluru-based company confirmed that the layoffs would happen, it disagreed with DH on the numbers.
"The redundancy won’t be more than 10% (less than 200 people)," a company spokesman said, adding that it had undertaken a restructuring exercise to minimise redundancy and "build a strong lateral structure that strengthens relevant roles and functions."
The cost-cutting move came at a time when the company, backed by SoftBank and Tiger Global, faced weak demand for its electric bikes. It has also seen many high-profile exits from founder Bhavish Agarwal's leadership team.
"Large-scale layoffs of any kind without any trigger, except the pressure to get profitability back on track, does not speak well of leadership," said T N Hari, an HR expert who is also the co-founder of Artha School of Entrepreneurship.
It meant that people were dispensable for this company, Hari added.
Ola is likely laying off people since "most of the things are built and done", giving it a chance to tighten its team, the anonymous source quoted above said.
Ola could have perhaps hired a third party to build its software, but it did not, leading to a situation that could end up jeopardising the future of many who had been working in a scenario "where each day was a deadline", the source told DH, adding that the layoffs are planned across the board but "more at the intermediate level".
Ola, which said that there would be no layoffs at the leadership level, currently has 2,000 engineers, as per its statement.
The move could affect its ability to attract top talent in the future.
"Hiring recklessly and firing heartlessly is a sure-shot sign of poor leadership and short-term thinking. It leaves the survivors demoralised and hurts the company's ability to hire in the future," Hari said.