Navi Technologies, an NBFC start-up founded by Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal, has fired over 250 employees in a fresh round of layoffs, Business Today has learned from sources.
An employee who was let go from the company in the current round of layoffs said, “I was a part of their tech team for over a year now, they laid me off on Tuesday, I got no severance also due to the new HR policy.”
Another employee, who is currently working in the admin department at the company, confirmed this development and also disclosed the scale of the downsizing round.
“The layoffs have been going on since Tuesday and will go on till Friday's first half. Tech, Product, Business, Analytics, no department is left untouched. The company plans on downsizing its staff by 20 per cent, over 250 people are impacted, "the source said.
He also explained the latest HR policy change at the company. “Until last year, Navi had two appraisal rounds, one in June, another in December. Employees who performed well were given hikes, non-performers were given warnings and notice to improve, and very few were laid off. But as per the latest HR policy, the company will only give promotions in December, and layoffs will be done in both cycles. Moreover, as per new policy, the company will not give any severance if an employee has been laid off in either of these cycles,” he said.
Another employee at the company, who works closely with the HR department, said that not all firings in the company were based on performance reviews.
He said, “The top management had plans of downsizing, that is why they tweaked the HR policy to ensure they don’t end up paying so much in severance. Moreover, not all layoffs are performance-based, as they will tell you. For example, there are many cases, where say a candidate got a 4/5 in the review after the process was completed. But management would push heads of departments to redo the process again until the score of a set number of employees in each department came down to 1 or 2. And basis that, they have now been asked to leave the company.”
Navi is a fintech start-up that operates in the digital lending, home loans, mutual funds, health insurance and microloans space. A highly placed source at the company noted that they plan on raising funds via debentures in the next few months.
Business Today has reached out to Navi with detailed queries to confirm these developments.
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