Health and fitness startup Cure.fit has downsized its operations and laid off trainers at its gyms in Tier-2 markets in India, depicting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic
Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori-led Curefit is the latest entrant to the group of companies laying off employees as a result of the nationwide lockdown.
It has surfaced that the company has not only laid off hundreds of its employees but also cut salaries drastically at all of its levels.
Curefit Lays off Employees on International Labour Day
The fitness startup has been offering live fitness sessions on its app and website since the country went into a lockdown in March.
According to employees, layoffs have come across the board, from trainers (master and lead trainers) to human resource executives to managers and centre heads.
The trouble for employees began with a meeting on May 1 called by Rishabh Telang, founder of Cult, acquired by Curefit in 2016.
In the meeting, senior employees and ‘master trainers’ were told that the company would lay off employees across the board, which includes trainers, managers, recruiters etc.
These employees were not sent a formal mail but actually got a call saying they should put in their resignation. Lead trainers were also informed that employees with less than three months of experience will be let go, while those with bad ratings and feedback will be asked to resign.
Employees told us that the company did not give a written intimation to the impacted employees and asked them to send in resignations on email, allegedly threatening to terminate if they don’t by the end of the day.
They argued that they weren’t informed in writing and only verbally on phone calls.
Cure.fit Cuts Salaries too
Cure.fit was founded in 2016 by Mukesh Bansal, co-founder of fashion retailer Myntra, and Ankit Nagori former chief business officer of Flipkart.
Cure.fit has a subscription-based model for its gym and food delivery products to generate revenue. Many Cure.fit subscribers will now have to shift to digital means to continue using services.
Along with the layoffs, the company has also implemented salary cuts across levels.
The founders have taken a 100% pay cut, the management team 50% and the rest of the staff, depending on seniority, have a reduction of 20-30%.
Virtual Training
Curefit had recently secured a big funding and invested back into its virtual classes. However, it would still need to have personal and group trainers.
The company had received $110 Mn in funding led by Singapore-based Temasek on March 21, just days before the lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020.
After that, it soon shifted to virtual fitness classes and even launched a challenge to allow people to complete a day’s training for which it would donate to the PM-CARES fund.
Curefit has repeatedly said that virtual classes have grown with a million new users
So it won’t be needing as many trainers as it did earlier with a wide physical footprint.
The employees also complained that the startup had the money to allegedly donate about INR 5 Cr to the PM-CARES fund but not enough to pay its employees.
The company advertises celebrity brand ambassadors like Hrithik Roshan and Tiger
Shroff.