At the Flipkart Group, our core belief is that our employees are the key to our success. We are committed to ensuring the personal safety of our delivery partners while building and strengthening a transparent, fair, inclusive, and democratic work environment, with a strong policy framework in place.
*Updated October 3, 2024
Please note – Read Flipkart’s official statement about the unfortunate incident with our delivery partner here:
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Open in new tab Safety takes utmost prominence in the Flipkart Group’s efforts towards creating a fair and inclusive workplace for the thousands of skilled individuals who come together across hubs, warehouses and fulfillment centers. One of the many measures is an SOS feature, which provides Wishmasters with quick access to triggering an alert. The communication reaches nine field executives, three hub managers, and three police stations within a radius of 3 kilometers. Read more about the Nanjunda SOS feature available on all Wishmasters’ devices here.
An Ekart SOS innovation in memory of Wishmaster Nanjunda Swamy
Our commitment to fairness, transparency, and inclusive growth
Fairness and transparency are central to our work ethic at the Flipkart Group. eKart Logistics, which has since 2009 operated as the logistics and supply chain arm of the Flipkart Group, expanded its service footprint in 2022 to offer comprehensive supply chain solutions for small and large businesses, aiming to power the engines of commerce in India.
This vast supply chain ecosystem of warehouses, mother-hubs and delivery hubs, which ensure serviceability to customers at PIN codes across India, are a source of employment, both regular and seasonal, to tens of thousands of people who play a vital role in the e-commerce industry. Many of them are employed in our last-mile operations as wishmasters, as our delivery partners are fondly called. Our kirana program, in turn, enables thousands of traditional retail neighborhood stores by enlisting them as delivery partners, thus enfolding them into the ongoing success story of e-commerce in India while fostering inclusive growth and access.
At eKart, our core belief is that our workers are the key to our success. We are committed to building and strengthening a transparent, fair, inclusive and democratic work environment for our workforce including our delivery partners, with a strong policy framework in place, applicable to all existing and new delivery partners across various models. We are committed to ensuring that all delivery partners including the ones engaged through third-party vendors and service providers are provided with payouts above and beyond minimum wages after associated costs. This is ensured through our proprietory effort linked and cost of living based structured rate cards, incentive constructs and agreements with our service providers. Additional measures such as refresher communications on earning potential, benefits and fair pay methodology are being adopted.
Fair Work and Transparency Policy – Highlights
Following are the salient points of the Transparent & Fair Work Principles policy:
- eKart is committed to ensuring that workers are paid commensurately for their efforts and productivity, and are sufficiently supported to meet their living expenses and overhead costs. Hence, eKart will ensure that Delivery Partners are paid per shipment and the calculation is based on local hourly minimum wage in their active hours engaged for delivery of shipments after taking into account costs like fuel, vehicle maintenance, and mobile phone usage charges. Periodic studies will be conducted in collaboration with workers to update payouts as necessary.
- The payment per shipment based on the above calculation will be defined by taking into consideration efforts required by Delivery Partners on different types of routes and deliveries, and any unforeseen scenarios leading to loss of earning opportunity. These factors will be periodically reviewed and updated as required.
- In all transparency, Delivery Partners will have visibility into completed deliveries and associated payouts.
- eKart is committed to ensure that there is trust and goodwill with Delivery Partners. Any changes in processes, practices, and terms and conditions for Delivery Partners will be communicated a minimum of 15 days in advance through the relevant application and through verbal communication.
- Processes, practices, policies, benefits and payouts will be uniform and consistent for all Delivery Partners as per Flipkart’s Code of Conduct. There will be no discrimination based on race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sex, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, marital/veteran/military status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, or any other legally protected status.
- Stringent processes will be enforced to ensure fair work allocation such that there is no bias or discrimination in allocation of shipments to Delivery Partners and there is parity in earning potential.
- To ensure a democratic and supportive work environment, Delivery Partners will have access to multiple channels to raise both individual and collective grievances. These channels will be periodically communicated to Delivery Partners and grievances will be addressed in a timely and effective manner.
As a people-centric organization, the welfare of our workforce is extremely important to us. We continuously improve existing initiatives and also implement new initiatives for the well-being and safety of our Delivery Partners. We have around 3 lakh Delivery Partners onboarded on our platform, out of which approximately 45,000 actively work with us on a daily basis in a purely discretionary and non-exclusive gig arrangement. We are committed to providing them a fair and equitable working environment through multiple initiatives based on focused themes, some of which are briefly explained below:
Fairness: We use analytical tools and diligent calculations to define pay structure and incentive schemes for our workers, so that their hourly earning potential is well above the state-mandated hourly minimum wage after considering costs. Stringent processes and neutral audit mechanisms are enforced to ensure parity in earning potential and to eliminate bias through fair allocation of work. Governance mechanisms have been established to validate that workers engaged by third-party vendors are also provided fair pay after associated costs. We have structured programs to further support our Delivery Partners and increase their earning potential, like the TrueFlex Platform to provide easy self-onboarding & direct engagement, Influencer & Shopsy-based incentives, and the Assisted Partner Program to enable purchase of bikes at discounted prices. The processes and initiatives for a financial safety net to counter unforeseen scenarios faced by our workers have been detailed in the internal Partner Protection Policy.
Transparency: We provide transparent and proactive communication to Delivery Partners about process changes and initiatives through training, refresher sessions, and posters across all work locations. The Terms & Conditions have been revised to include the change of communication timeframe and limited liability clause to ensure clear and transparent agreement with our workers. In addition, the Transparent and Fair Work Principles policy (as detailed above) has been made accessible to all our Delivery Partners through their learning platform so that they are aware of all processes pertaining to them.
Empowerment: We have implemented programs like FlipAhead to provide career growth opportunities for our workers. There are also multiple proactive initiatives to empower diverse worker groups like SHEroes for women, Vividhata for Persons with Disabilities, and Indradhanush for LGBTQIA+ individuals. Through the Instant Credit program, our workers can obtain advance payments to meet any financial exigency.
Well-being: To safeguard and protect our workers, we have comprehensive insurance plans for all, including many benefits such as loss of pay due to accident (upto INR 5,000 per week) and additional financial cover for critical illnesses and injury. We also provide humanitarian assistance over and above insurance coverage, as required. We have robust threat management & incident reporting mechanisms and dedicated nodal officers to manage incidents which threaten safety of delivery partners in their work environment like violence, theft and other fraudulent activities by miscreants.
Inclusion: Various channels are available for our workers to share their feedback and be included in collectively defining processes in our platform. We have our monthly pulse survey called InstaConnect in 11 languages to continuously listen, comprehend and act on Delivery Partner’s feedback. There are multiple forums for workers to raise concerns like escalation matrix, Ethics & POSH reporting, SOS features in Apps, and Aawaaz. Our workers can also express their voice as a group and stringent mechanisms are in place to connect them with relevant internal teams to address their grievances in a timely and effective manner.
To further strengthen our processes & offerings for our Delivery Partners, we are working on additional initiatives like doctor consultations on 25+ specializations including Mental Health, One-stop Shop section in each workplace for visibility, and ease of access to all benefits available for workers, Benefits Maximiser Cell to help delivery partners avail all benefits and address any grievances, Additional Insurance Benefits to cover Maternity and Gender Reassignment expenses, Engagement of External Auditing Agency to conduct random audits to eliminate bias in work allocation and a consolidated digital platform for communication & grievance redressal for delivery partners called Instasamadhan.
Through our initiatives, we aim to connect the dots between individual expectations and eKart’s focus areas. When our workers see this, they feel valued and significant. We are committed to ensure trust and mutual respect with our Delivery Partners and will continuously strive to emphasize this commitment by providing the best work environment for gig workers in the industry.
Read the policy
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