Questions have been raised about Flipkart's decision to postpone the joining dates of new campus hires to December 2016. Here are the answers.
Some questions have been raised about Flipkart’s recently announced decision to postpone the joining dates of new campus recruits and management trainees. We wish to reassure you that there is only one version of the truth.
Following are the answers to some frequently asked questions.
Why has Flipkart postponed the joining of its new campus hires?
In the past few months, we’ve been working on restructuring our businesses to strike the right balance among key levers such as innovation, strategic execution, and operational excellence. The organizational restructuring involves the creation of new business units in some cases and mergers in other cases. For example, we integrated our engineering organization and created new units like the customer shopping experience group. This restructuring process is ongoing.
As a part of this ongoing restructuring, the campus program will also go through a comprehensive overhaul to ensure that it is in line with our new business structure and that our campus recruits start working towards larger company goals from Day One.
As we work on redesigning this program, we have taken a decision to postpone the joining of new recruits by a few months. Instead of June 2016, the new recruits will now be part of the improved campus program in December 2016. Flipkart will also pay an additional joining bonus of Rs. 1.5 lakh to all campus recruits.
Flipkart has always been known to hire and develop the best campus talent in India. Many of the young leaders we have invested in and shaped have gone on to lead businesses and deliver innovative solutions for our customers. Over the past few years, Flipkart has invested in building a pipeline of young leaders from India’s finest engineering and business schools.
How about the disappointment of students?
As an organization, this was a tough decision to make. We understand that it will disappoint a few students in the short term. However, we believe that it is important for us to bring our new campus recruits into an environment that is conducive to their learning and overall development. As mentioned earlier, to allay their pain and disappointment, we will offer an additional joining bonus to all recruits who join us in December.
How will this affect students’ ability to pay back their educational loans?
We have taken this point into consideration while deferring the joining date to December 2016. Loan repayment starts a year after the end of studies or six months after the student gets a job, whichever is earlier (this is known as ‘moratorium period’ or ‘repayment holiday’). Candidates can seek an extension on this period by submitting their revised offer letters to the bank.
Our decision to postpone joining dates to December 2016 has therefore been taken keeping in mind the best interests of our campus recruits. Further, the decision to award campus recruits the specified additional joining bonus is also intended to ease their financial burden.
Are you sure there won’t be any further delay than December?
The decision to defer joining for 6 months has been taken after due evaluation of all possibilities and keeping in mind the timelines to complete the organizational restructuring at Flipkart. We are committed and absolutely confident of having all our trainees on board in December 2016.
Please address your queries to campusteam@flipkart.com
