According to reports, Ride hailing unicorn Ola has deferred impending yearly appraisals, and has internally started layoffs, expected to reach 400-500.
The development comes as Ola recently shut down its ventures in Ola Foods, Ola Dash and Ola Cars. Reportedly, the company has asked its senior executives to part ways with employees on a performance basis.
As the news of the deferred appraisal expectedly caused dismay in Ola’s employees, Chief HR Balachandar N addressed the issue on the company’s Slack workspace, saying “Team – We understand the anxiousness around Driven. As you would know by now, we are working on the restructuring of some of our businesses and will follow it up with Driven.” Driven is Ola’s employee appraisal program.
Ola finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Having logged it’s first ever operating profit in FY-21, the company has been among the many unicorns hit hard by the tight funding crunch that has prevailed over the startup ecosystem, globally. With these layoffs, it remains to be seen whether Ola holds up on its word of shifting employees from its shut down used car, cloud kitchen and grocery delivery arms to their cab hailing, Fintech and EV businesses.
Recent shut downs indicate the company has taken a step back from its super app ambitions, as Founder Bhavish Agrawal has placed his priorities on furthering Ola Electric’s cause. And on that front, things have not been the most pleasant as well, with multiple reports of fire incidents across the country driving down sales to a mere 130-200 units per day.
