YesMadam Startup company Fires 100 Employees After Mental Health Survey: Who is Ashu Arora Jha Behind the Controversial Terminations?
YesMadam Startup company, a Noida-based salon home service startup, has landed itself in controversy after it allegedly fired around 100 employees for reporting work-related stress in an internal survey. The controversial layoffs, said to have been based on feedback from a mental health survey, have raised questions about how the company treats employee wellbeing.
The situation had picked up when Shitiz Dogra, an Associate Director of Digital Marketing at IndiGo, shared a screenshot email that was supposedly sent out by the HR department at YesMadam. As per the email, said to be written by Ashu Arora Jha, the company's HR Manager, it declared that the company was terminating such employees who had reported significant stress at work. The company wanted "to ensure that no one remains stressed at work" by letting go of the dissenters, the email claimed.
A leaked email was read: "In order to ensure no one leaves with a stress at work, we have had to make the difficult decision to let go of employees who have shown significant stress. This is effective immediately." The decision has sparked much anger among people, with many denouncing YesMadam for laying off workers for being truthful about their stress.
LinkedIn and other social media users condemned the action of YesMadam. One user said, "It is not fair that a person should lose their job for honesty about stress. Rather than addressing the issue, YesMadam decided to sack the people who raised the issue." The critics also pointed out how the approach of the company would exacerbate the toxic work culture that many employees already suffer from.
As emotionally potent as the decision appears, claims made in this very same Ashu Arora Jha's email seem to throw some light on the basis behind this decision. Apparently dismissing mental health concerns of its employees rather than working them through the issue, this creates further concerns about the true value provided at the workplace for mental well-being and the rising prevalence of work-place toxicity.
A very big and ongoing conversation concerning employee well-being, support needed by mental health, and responsibilities towards companies making sure that people have safe environments to grow in and develop. That, of course, is about the controversies and debates brought about by the decision by YesMadam.
