Fresh breeze blowing across startups

With competition becoming tough, startups are now not shy of dropping the pink slip into the pockets of employees who have got stuck at a level doing the same job and not looking at scaling up.

Startups are now focusing  on infusing fresh blood by hiring smart go-getter employees. In the process, they are ready to say a polite goodbye to redundant workers.

The New Year has seen many startups putting in place new talent initiatives. Companies like PolicyBazaar, MobiKwik, Chaayos and Treebo Hotels are planning to scale up on talent rather on retaining employees who are stuck at various levels.

“We will concentrate on performance management and upping the motivation in a fastgrowing environment so that the managers perform to their optimum,” Rashmi Daga, chief executive at FreshMenu, was quoted in The Economic Times.

PolicyBazaar too has shifted its policy and is hunting for talent while firing redundant employees. The company’s manpower audit has found that most of its employees have been in the same role for the past four years. In that period, the company has grown 150 times. For the company, the focus will be on the fact that it must keep the annual growth rate as high as 100% while managing its people.

Earlier, startups were under the notion that they could hire anyone with just a degree. “This led to many wrong hirings being made across startups looking to scale up, and consequent layoffs. This year, even investments will be hard to come by from, say , a year ago,”  Jappreet Sethi, cofounder of YoStartups, was quoted in the ET.

The focus is now on looking to build skills in-house and for this, having the right talent in place is essential.

“In today’s world, anyone can acquire the same technology , infrastructure and paraphernalia to set up a competing business. But it is only the right talent that will make the difference for Chaayos,” said CEO Nitin Saluja in ET.

“People hit a point where they must either grow to the next level or bow out. We need fresh ideas and a lot of restructuring. We have a 12-18 month approach for this. In some cases, when some people aren’t able to make a change within that period, we have to replace them,” said Yashish Dahiya, CEO of PolicyBazaar.Treebo Hotels is planning to juggle around its staffers across offices to teach them how different teams work in different cities in order to facilitate deeper connections and better sharing of a common vision.

“We will hire smarter and spend much more time and resources. The right attitude, the startup-oriented temperament and an uncompromising approach to quality is what we’re looking for,” said cofounder of MobiKwik, Upasana Taku.

A fresh breeze is now blowing across Startups as winter is all set to give way to spring.