Byju’s crisis: Employees grapple with financial distress, humiliation, emotional trauma

Byju's India workforce, excluding Aakash and international entities like Tynker, Osmo, and EPIC, stands at less than 10,000, down from the last reported 14,000, they added.

Raj, 27, climbed the ranks at Byju’s from a sales associate to a team leader in just three years. The latest promotion also came with a hike of 50 percent on his last salary of Rs 8.7 lakh per annum, encouraging him to finally take a leap of faith and buy a home for his parents in Mumbai.

He secured a home loan of Rs 75 lakh making a down payment of Rs 30 lakh and planned to cover the remaining in 360 equated monthly instalments of Rs 59,000.

Despite working out of Bengaluru and covering his living expenses there, he also invested another Rs 10 lakh for the new flat to be furnished and ready for his parents to move in immediately. With Byju’s promising yet another raise soon, Raj was confident he could cover the expenses.

But on August 10, his world came crashing down with a single email: Byju’s decided he needed to be laid off. “My dad and brother suggested selling the house considering the steep monthly EMIs we were paying. Without my salary, it was very tough to sustain those payments. But I was determined to hold on to it, so I started looking for a new job,” Raj recalled.

Eventually, he did land a job, but with a salary that was half of what he earned at Byju’s. Struggling to cover his expenses in his new job in Pune and facing relentless pressure from bank agents over delayed EMI payments, Raj was left with no choice but to sell the house at a loss of Rs 20 lakh.

Raj’s story is one among many upended by the downfall of what was once India’s most valued startup and the world’s most valuable edtech: Byju’s.

Among those affected is Byju's Group's once 50,000-strong workforce, which has now reduced to less than 30,000, sources told Moneycontrol. This workforce includes employees from Byju’s core business and its wholly owned subsidiaries like Tynker, Osmo, EPIC, Great Learning, and Aakash.

To be sure, Aakash’s workforce forms a majority of this currently. Meanwhile, Byju's India workforce, excluding Aakash and international entities like Tynker, Osmo, and EPIC, stands at less than 10,000, down from the last reported 14,000 in 2023, they added.

"In this challenging period, the natural attrition rate has been understandably high. On the other hand, the founders have gone beyond the extra mile to ensure the company remains afloat and is now able to stage a turnaround. The company has demonstrated extreme resilience in fighting off spurious allegations from a few motivated foreign investors. We are also more robust because of the emotional support extended by many employees, which will be unreported," a Byju's spokesperson said in response to Moneycontrol's queries.

Moneycontrol spoke to nearly 20 employees who were either terminated, resigned, or are still employed at Byju’s, all sharing a common plight: the company is yet to settle their dues, leaving many in financial and emotional distress.

Now, a group of them is planning to drag Byju’s to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), a court where Byju's is already battling legal showdowns with seven of its stakeholders.

Mounting dues and troubles

Upon discovering his layoff, Ajay, a 24-year-old teacher turned to social media to connect with others facing the same predicament. Ajay initially created a WhatsApp group which quickly garnered a lot of traction.

To learn more about the concerns of these individuals, Ajay decided to create a Google form where participants could briefly describe their issues, the amount owed to them, and the status of their employment at Byju’s.

In just 10 days since the group was formed, nearly 400 people filled out the form, revealing total dues amounting to Rs 5.17 crore including both current and former employees. Moneycontrol has reviewed the data. To be sure, this figure is only a fraction of the overall debts owed by Byju’s to its workforce. Byju's has laid off over 10,000 employees in the last two years as it battled a double blow of drying venture capital funding and slowing demand for online learning services. A large chunk of them are still waiting for their dues.

Now, the group of employees led by Ajay have appointed a lawyer and plan to knock on the doors of NCLT to demand their dues from Byju’s.

"Byju's settlement issues with employees have been going on for some time. The company has already been in conversation with the labour departments of Karnataka and West Bengal to decide a payment plan. Byju's has promised to make payments in the next two to three months which is dependent on a case-by-case basis," said a source close to the company.

This follows a period of turmoil for Byju's when its investor board members have left too, citing differences with founder and CEO of Byju’s Byju Raveendran. At least seven vendors have sued Byju's at NCLT to recover their dues. The company’s recently appointed CEO Arjun Mohan and CFO Ajay Goel have also stepped down. It attempted to solve some of the issues by setting up an advisory council with veterans such as Mohandas Pai and Rajnish Kumar. In the latest development, both Pai and Kumar now plan to step down after the completion of their one-year contract in June this year.

Meanwhile, Byju’s has also halted part of employee salaries for as much as two months since March as it faces a paucity of funds. In May, while the company managed to pay April salaries to all "active" employees, it laid off a number of staff just days before, multiple sources confirmed to Moneycontrol.

“Everything they are doing is illegal. They think this is a smart move but they are playing with our lives. We should have been paid our salaries because we worked for the entire month of April and the two months before that,” said Sharad, 41, an academic counsellor who was let go two days before Byju’s paid April salaries to its remaining workforce.

"It is a much-reported fact that Byju's has been facing a liquidity crunch for over a year. The salaries for April were paid in full and on time, while the previous two months' salaries were paid in part to the best of our abilities. This month's salaries will also be paid promptly from the company's revenue. The founder has been leading various teams operationally to implement a new strategy, internally termed "BYJU'S 3.0," the Byju's spokesperson told Moneycontrol.

This came even as the company has still not paid full and final settlements to employees who were laid off as late as June 2023. "Byju's is facing a liquidity crunch and hence the priority for the company is paying their current workforce over anyone else," said the source close to the company quoted above.

Struggles with job search

Amid mounting unpaid dues, Byju’s current and former employees are struggling to find new jobs, largely due to the company's tarnished reputation in the industry. Adding to this challenge is the flood of resumes saturating the job market, taking salaries to new lows.

Rishav, 26, who was let go in April as a business development manager, told Moneycontrol that he has attended about 16 interviews so far, all to no avail. Even for the few positions where he received callbacks, the salaries offered were at least a 20 percent cut, forget a hike. “When I asked why, one hiring manager said, 'Byju’s is a sunken ship. At least here you'll be paid your salary,” Rishav recounted.

Currently, he is considering two offers, both from Byju’s closest competitors, but with salary cuts of 20 and 25 percent respectively.

For Rahul, 25, the situation was even worse. After being let go from Byju’s as a business development manager in April, he applied to several companies, including another edtech unicorn and a close rival of Byju’s. Despite the 20 percent salary cut, he accepted the job, aware of how ex-Byju’s employees were being treated in the job market.

"I joined the company and completed a five-day training process on April 25. On April 30, I was informed that I had passed the final assessment. But for the next two days, I heard nothing," Rahul said.

Then, out of the blue, Rahul received a termination letter from the company he had worked in for just five days. To date, he has not received any response from the human resource representative or hiring manager on what went wrong.

Hardeep, 27, a former team lead who was recently let go from Byju’s, said that recruiters seem uninterested in his skills or experience, focusing solely on the Byju’s tag. "I've been sending out resumes everywhere. I've received a few calls, but as soon as they find out I worked at Byju’s, there's always a pause. They talk for a while, and then I never hear back from them," Hardeep said.

Humiliation and emotional distress

Hardeep’s brother Jaideep, a 25-year-old associate in operations at Byju’s, lost his job in early June 2023. He has since lost hope of securing another corporate job after trying for months.

While Hardeep is striving to make a living in a big city, bolstered by his wife's lesser but steady income, his brother has resorted to working as a helper in a local shop in his hometown in Haryana. Many like him are struggling not only financially but also with emotional distress and a sense of undeserved humiliation.

Take Vijay, a 35-year-old former academic centre head who is still on the hunt for a job. His 60-year-old mother, who has never worked before, now works at a local showroom in their hometown to support the family. "I was the sole breadwinner for my mother and brother. Losing my job has forced my mother into the workforce for the first time in her life. I feel utterly helpless, but there is no way out until I find a job," Vijay said.

Vikas, 30, faculty manager at Byju’s, recently got married in February. He and his wife returned to Noida in March from their hometown in Uttar Pradesh, only to find out that after months of delay in salary, he has now lost his job. He has been searching for another job ever since.

While the last few months went by relying on his savings and his wife’s income, Vikas is unsure how he will be able to continue in the city without a job for long. “Now I am worried about next month. I am on the verge of bankruptcy. If I don’t find a job soon, I will have to move back to my hometown. I have no other option,” he said.

For Vikas, with six years of teaching experience, the thought of returning to his parents for support is deeply humiliating, he said.

The experience was made even worse by banks and creditors relentlessly pursuing them as they fell behind on EMI payments due to a lack of steady income.

Raj recounted how, after a couple of days of delay in EMI payment in December, agents started bombarding him with over 15 calls a day. “In one of these conversations, when I asked them for a short grace period of two days, the agents started shouting at me and threatening me,” said Raj.

Two days later, Raj and his family witnessed a traumatic incident when the loan agents turned up at his house. “They were very aggressive when they came, we were extremely shocked. That is when we realised that it was not worth it and sold the house at a loss,” Raj said.

Ram, 29, a market research analyst, shared a similar experience when agents began calling him after a few days' delay in paying the EMI on his car loan. “After I received a part of my salary in March and April, it was not enough for me to pay off Rs 35,000 just for my EMI. In April, after I missed my payments, multiple agents started calling. I tried to explain that I needed 10 days, but they wouldn’t listen. They began threatening me with penalties and seizing my car,” Ram recounted.

Ram has now taken another loan and borrowed some money to buy out his car loan after he could not tolerate the humiliation from agents anymore.

Rasheed, a 32-year-old former Byju’s team lead, is facing another ordeal common to many Byju’s sales associates operating from their hometown. According to Rasheed, the customers he sold courses to in his hometown in Uttar Pradesh often call him and even visit him complaining about classes being halted and demanding refunds.

“There is nothing I can tell them. My name has been tarnished because I was the one who sold them these courses. Now, Byju’s has stopped some classes that students paid for, and the helpline number also does not work. It is tough for me to continue living here,” Rasheed said.

Unfulfilled assurances

Meanwhile, Raveendran has been communicating sporadically with employees via email assuring them that the circumstances will be better in a few days once the company can use the funds from a recent rights issue. For some, these assurances were the reason they stayed with the organisation till now.

Neha, 32, a teacher from Delhi, has been trying to find a new job after being fired at the end of April. “If they had stopped giving fake assurances and told us about the company’s condition, we would have resigned and found new jobs. With the new academic year starting in April, no company will hire teachers. We have to sit idle for at least one to two months,” she said.

As a legal battle rages on between Byju’s investors and founders over the use of funds from the rights issue, many employees are losing faith.

Rishi, 37, an online reputation manager, told Moneycontrol that he did not realise the problems with Byju’s until he resigned. “When you are part of a company, you don’t see anything wrong with how things are done. I read about the company’s problems, but internally the management pretended it was just a short slump,” Rishi said.

“It is unbelievable what went down so fast with Byju’s. How can a company valued at $22 billion one day, not be able to pay employee salaries the next? We are all shocked,” Ram added.

According to multiple employees Moneycontrol spoke to, the company has again started recruiting employees at low packages of Rs 3-3.5 lakh to keep its operations running during the peak sales quarter for test prep companies.

"As per business requirement Byju's might hire new associates for sales at a lower salary package than before. But it would not be any lower than the industry standard," said the source close to the company, quoted above.

(Names of employees have been changed to protect their identities.)