Flipkart employees to return to office for three days a week starting December 2021

By Administrator_India

Capital Sands

Walmart-owned Flipkart’s employees will return to office thrice a week starting December 2021, as it looks to vaccinate all of its employees and move to a hybrid working model.

Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy made the announcement at an employee townhall on July 13th, 2021, hours after the e-commerce major raised a $3.6 Billion from a clutch of investors at a valuation of $37.6 Billion, one of the largest fund-raises by a single company in recent times.

A Flipkart spokesperson confirmed the move to a hybrid working model by the end of year but did not provide more details.

Flipkart has over 16,000 full time employees and except for a few critical roles, most of them have been working from home, since March 2020, after the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic.

It had announced in March this year that it will cover the Covid19 vaccine cost for all of Flipkart and Myntra’s employees and their dependents. It began vaccinating its frontline staff in May.

As more and more employees get vaccinated, many companies are working on a hybrid working model. TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan for instance, said last week that the IT company plans to get its over 5 lakh employees double vaccinated by September and get them back to office on a regular basis.

This would be the first step in implementing the software major’s 25*25 vision, where it does not expect more than 25 percent of its employees to work in office by the year 2025.

Globally companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google and TikTok have announced return to workplace plans, though this was met with a lukewarm response, as more and more employees prefer to work from home indefinitely.

Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy also wrote to employees on its fund raise, calling it ‘one of the most significant investments in the digital ecommerce ecosystem in India.’ Moneycontrol has seen the email. He also announced an ESOP buyback to reward employees in the email.

“Each of you has played a critical role in helping the company reach this milestone, and the entire management team at Flipkart and Myntra are grateful for your commitment and dedication.”

“As many of you know, it has always been our endeavour to provide our employees with an opportunity to liquidate their vested options regularly. This year we are pleased to announce a buyback of 5% of the past three years vested options. We are offering employees an additional buyback of 5% of all vested options as we stay committed to wealth creation for you,” he said.