ixigo reinstates full salaries, grants discounted ESOP to employees

Leading travel firm ixigo on Thursday said it has reinstated full salaries and has also granted employee stock ownership plans at a discount to its staff to compensate for pay cuts in the last three months.

Leading travel firm ixigo on Thursday said it has reinstated full salaries and has also granted employee stock ownership plans at a discount to its staff to compensate for pay cuts in the last three months. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the company had announced graded pay cuts across its team. ixigo co-founders had foregone their entire salaries and the leadership team took over 60 per cent pay cut that was graded by pay.

The rest of the staff mutually agreed to a 20-50 per cent pay cut depending upon compensation brackets. "As of yesterday (Wednesday), ixigo has reverted salaries for all its employees and has re-initiated hiring for technology and customer experience roles. ixigo is the only major OTA (online travel agent) in India that has not laid off any employee during the crisis," it said in a statement.

According to the company, it has also granted ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans) to all its employees to compensate for the pay cuts made during the last three months. "The current ESOP grant announced will result in an additional 2.3 per cent of the company's overall shareholding being given to all 150 ixigems (ixigo employees)," it noted.

In March, with the lockdown coming into effect and the subsequent travel ban, ixigo said the travel sector was one of the hardest hit, ridden with layoffs. At that time, the firm evaluated several options for survival in the coming six months and in consultation with the leadership, it announced graded pay cuts across the team, the statement said.

ixigo co-founder and CEO Aloke Bajpai said, "We expect to get back to 50 per cent of our pre-COVID-19 revenue level by the end of 2020." PTI SM HRS RAM HRS.

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