In preparation for a “bigger and better than before” Big Billion Days sale next month, Flipkart, the country’s top etailer is looking to hire more than 10,000 temporary staff in logistics and last-mile delivery. It will also pump in the same kind of investments in the sale, as in the previous years, said a top official from Flipkart.
Refuting the recent report in BusinessLine that Flipkart is not hiring bikers to augment its delivery team, Nitin Seth, Chief Administrative Officer, said: “In fact, we are looking at hiring more than 10,000 temporary staff in logistics and last mile across the country, including delivery staff on bikes, to take care of the massive demand we are expecting during the festive season.”
Flipkart had let go of 400 of its “under-performing” employees as a part of its six-monthly performance review cycle in July, as they did not measure up to expectations even after going through the mandatory performance improvement plan of one-three months.
Even the company’s Executive Chairman, Sachin Bansal, who stepped down from his CEO role earlier this year, admitted at a recent town hall meeting that responsibility for performance lies with everybody, including the leadership.
Denying BusinessLine ’s latest report about the etailer laying off 800 employees from its tech and corporate team over the next few months, Seth said “We confirm that there are no plans for any lay-offs in the coming months. Your information is totally false, baseless and untrue.”
Asked about the company’s voluntary and involuntary attrition rates, he said “our attrition rate is as per industry standards.”
New R&D centreThe etailer recently set up a small R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. On the logic of setting up an R&D centre in the US, when most companies have R&D centres in Bengaluru, Seth said: “Our biggest R&D centre is located in Bengaluru where engineers are working on cutting edge technologies.
“We have set up an R&D facility in the Bay Area to work on specific tech solutions for which talent is not available in India because we believe Indian customers should get the benefits of world class technologies.”