Snapdeal asks 200 employees to shape up or ship out; employees choosing latter over ‘impossible’ targets

The Indian e-commerce giant Snapdeal has issued a notice to its consumer service department, asking 200 members to either shape up or ship out.

Owing to the almost impossible demands of the company's performance improvement plan, most employees are opting for the second option, said several people aware of the matter.

"The process is still on and nearly 70 have been called in till now (Wednesday)," one of the 100 employees summoned by the HR department told ET.

In December last year, 150 employees were asked to quit the company.

"Last trimester, which ended in November, employees were asked to leave in December. This time, before the end of this trimester, which is March, they are asking us to leave," said one person. "In April 2015, we had close to 1,000 employees. Now we have around 500, of which 200 employees are being asked to leave."

The options given to employees are choosing between resigning or going on the performance plan, for which they would be given a month's time to meet targets, failing which they will be terminated.

However, the company denied that it was sacking majority of its teams.

"There have been no firings or layoffs at Snapdeal," a spokesperson said in response to ET’s query. "Some employees at our Contact Centre, who were not meeting the required performance parameters have been offered a Performance Improvement Plan, which offers such employees 30 days to improve their performance. Some of the employees have chosen not to go through the Performance Improvement Plan and have instead opted to exit. In deference to their wishes, Snapdeal has accepted their resignations. The PIP process is expected to
cover about 200 team members."

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