Byju’s CEO emails sorry to staff for not so ‘smooth’ layoffs

Byju Raveendran also acknowledged in his internal e-mail that the process was “not as smooth” as the company intended. ET has reviewed a copy of the communication.

“I seek your forgiveness if this process is not as smooth as we had intended it to be. While we want to finish this process smoothly and efficiently, we don’t want to rush through it. So, we are informing all the affected team members individually with the dignity, empathy, and patience they deserve. I want to emphasize that the overall job cuts are not more than five percent of our total strength,” Raveendran said.

Read |
Kerala orders probe as Byju’s closes its office, sacks staff

The email follows a decision by
Byju’s to rationalise 5% of its 50,000-strong workforce.

The move came in for sharp criticism, with a Kerala-based employee union alleging that the
startup was forcing employees to resign. The state government has launched an investigation into the labour practices of Byju’s.

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Raveendran said the company had expanded exponentially over the past four years but was now aiming to “grow sustainably”.

“We scaled up quickly and massively across the world in the last four years…2018 to 2021 were our hypergrowth years, when we regularly broke records on every business metric. We also expanded our family significantly both in our core business and by onboarding team members from our acquisitions,” he wrote.

“Then 2022 happened. This is the year when many adverse macroeconomic factors changed the business landscape. These have compelled tech companies around the world to focus on sustainability and capital-efficient growth. Byju’s is no exception to this trend.”

Last month, Byju’s announced its
results for fiscal year 2020-21 after an 18-month delay.

It reported a loss of Rs 4,588 crore, or almost 18 times its loss in the year-ago period.

The company, India’s most-valued startup, reported that its revenue from operations for the financial year ended March 31, 2021, had been readjusted to Rs 2,280 crore.

This marked a significant drop of around 50% from the projected revenue of about Rs 4,400 crore cited in the unaudited results of Byju’s parent firm Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, which has been facing intense scrutiny over its accounting practices in recent months.

On October 18, ET reported that
Byju’s closed a financing round of $250 million from existing investors, including Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which led the round with over $100 million.

In September, Byju’s announced a change in its direct-to-consumer sales model. As a result of this, it has started closing some of its field sales offices across the country, from where employees are either being moved to bigger centres or being laid off.

“I realize that there is a huge price to pay for walking on this path to profitability. We are having to part ways with 2,500 of our colleagues to avoid role duplication across our businesses,” Raveendran said.