With no management, employees can‘t even resign or get fired!

Anjali Singhmoneycontrol.comOnce promoted by Bollywood stars Ranbir Kapoor and Kangna Ranaut, e-commerce firm Askmebazaar has become talk of the town after it suspended its operations last month leaving about 4,000 employees in angst. As expected, most of the employees allege that they haven’t been paid and have been struggling to pay their bills. And surprisingly, the employees can’t resign either ! However on August 23, AskMe declared laying off of delivery boys, all of whom were hired on a contract basis. In an e-mail to its contract labour vendor reviewed by moneycontrol.com, HR Vice-president Rajat Narain told Innov it’s hiring contract agency that August 31, 2016 will be the last working day of all delivery boys. “You are requested for full and final calculation for all boys,” he said in an email to Amit Duggal, Vice-president at Innovsource Private Limited. However, employees are not as lucky as contract labour. With no one to report to and no one to go for answers or even submit a resignation letter — which then has to get accepted — 4,000 employees at the e-commerce firm are left in the lurch. After suspending the operations, the company in its last e-mail instructed employees to not to report to office and only work from home. Laying off would have meant payment of a severance package, for which the company doesn’t have any monies. In light of the conversation with Kshitij Kapoor (name changed to protect identity) from the creatives team of the company, a new question has emerged — where is the top management of Askmebazaar? According to Kshitij, neither of the employees have not been asked to handover any sort of office property (including gadgets and laptops), nor have they been asked to resign. The thread of communication is completely broken between employees and management leading to confusion and chaos.The picture is an even grotesque one for staffers at the lower rung who're sole breadwinners of their respective families. “No one was prepared for this crisis, we never calculated or planned for something like this. The damage has been done and the repercussions massive,” Kshitij said. Most employees are now struggling to pay their monthly bills. While others who couldn’t pay their monthly rentals have been forced to vacate home by landlords. They have returned to their home towns.