Hero MotoCorp initiates voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for all staff

“In keeping with the objective of building a robust organization in a rapidly evolving dynamic environment while retaining employee welfare at its core, Hero MotoCorp Ltd, the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, today launched a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its staff”, the company said in a statement.

The VRS has been designed in line with the vision to make the organization ‘agile’ and ‘future-ready’, consolidating roles and reducing layers to increase empowerment and agility. The statement added, “We expect this to improve efficiency within the Company through a lean and more productive organization.”

Hero MotoCorp had also come up with a VRS for its employees in 2019.

Applicable to all staff members, the VRS offers a package that includes – among other benefits – a one-time lump-sum amount, variable pay, gifts, medical coverage, retention of company car, relocation assistance, career support.

Hero MotoCorp held the general consumer sentiment is improving, as reflected in the sales performance in the month of March. “The constructive policies of the government and the social sector reforms have given a further boost to the demand scenario and the two-wheeler industry expects these factors to contribute towards a double-digit growth in this financial year”, the company said.

To be sure, Hero MotoCorp’s sales grew 11% to 5,155,793 units in the last financial year. But overall two-wheeler sales in the local market are yet to regain peak volumes of about 21 million units last reported in FY19. In January 2021, former partner Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) too had announced a voluntary retirement scheme for its permanent employees who had completed 10 years of service.

Among passenger vehicle makers, Tata Motors had initiated a VRS for its permanent employees and workers in Dec 2020. Honda Cars India too had announced a voluntary retirement scheme for its employees across manufacturing and related operations from January 2020, to streamline its workforce as it slowly moved ahead with the ceasing of operations at its 1,00,000-unit capacity plant in Greater Noida, established in 1997. In November 2020, commercial vehicle major Ashok Leyland announced a Voluntary Retirement Scheme for permanent employees across its offices and factories.