Ola begins layoffs and, pauses appraisal in a bid to cut costs
Ola went on to shut down the services of Ola Cars, Ola Dash and Ola Cars last month.

Reports this week suggest how Ola Cabs has initiated the process of massive job cuts of as much as 500 employees. The layoffs occur across verticals, from its workforce which is almost 1,100 strong as it hopes to cut costs as it fights through a challenging funding atmosphere.

The ride-hailing company, backed by SoftBank, has even deferred appraisals as it targets ‘leaner and consolidated teams.’ Mainly, this is so that it can maintain its ‘strong profitability,’ keeping it in place. Citing sources, first ones to report on the development was IANS.

Certain news agencies reviewed an internal communication on Slack, the communication platform. According to it, the Chief of HR, Balachandar N stated how the company understood the ‘anxiousness’ surrounding their appraisal programme, Driven. The communication depicted how the HR Chief stating how the company was in the process of the ‘restructuring’ of some of its businesses. Moreover, he stated how this would soon follow with the restructuring of 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,”

Reportedly, the layoffs initiated as the head of Talent Acquisition of Ola, Shikhar Sood, who is also in-charge of for entire Ola group’s talent acquisition gave his notice. Reportedly, his resignation came as many of the other top executives gave in their resignations.

As specified in another report, various former executives stated that the company’s culture of ‘act fast; think later,’ unit closures, along with product complaints resulted in the new ‘Ola troubles.’ Moreover, the Senior Director and Business Head for Charging Networks at Ola, Yashwant Kumar also decided to leave the company earlier this week.

In June this year, the ride-hailing giant shut down its quick commerce business, Ola Dash, along with its used vehicle business Ola Cars, Additionally, Ola went on to close operations of ‘Ola Cars’ just a year following its launch, as it concentrates on its electric car and electric two wheeler verticals.

Till this point, Ola has gone on to put an end to food panda, Ola Cafe, Ola Foods, and finally shutting down Ola Dash recently. On the other hand, even Ola Electric has witnessed some high profile exits in the past few months. Currently, Ola Electric is going through a government probe regarding battery fires alongside other EV players in the field.