The crisis at Tinyowl seems to be getting resolved, albeit slowly. Employees at the beleaguered food tech firm have started receiving payments due to them, at least in some cities. While its Pune employees got their dues cleared, their counterparts in Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai are still waiting for the payment process to begin.
According to top management sources those employees who were ready to abide by the employment terms across the four cities where they have shut shop, have got their settlements and dues cleared. For the rest, it may take longer.
“The contract gives them the option of resigning and claiming a month’s salary along with one month notice period. But employees demanded two month’s salary with two month’s notice period which the management had initially refused to agree with, resulting in the revolt against the company. Those who still remain firm on their demands are yet to get their dues which will take a while,” added the source.
Earlier last week, the Mumbai based food delivery startup found itself in a huge crisis when all the four co founders were held hostage, in their offices in Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. One of the founders Gaurav Choudhary who had gone to Pune office to break the news of shutting shops in all the four cities and initiating a separation process, was held hostage for over 36 hours. Local police and politicians were involved in helping the employees negotiate with the founder.
Eventually, the CEO and co founder of TinyOwl, Harsh Mandad along with his team promised the disgruntled employees that they would make sure that all the deserving candidates get placed in other organisations through their personal network. Though the management continued to receive threat mails from its agitated employees.
“Financial mismanagement is the main reason why they had to shut their operations in four cities, they could have done it slowly instead of randomly sending the co founders to different locations and breaking this news to their employees which resulted in employees resorting to such extreme steps like holding Gaurav as a hostage for 36 hours,”a former TinyOwl employee told FE.