25% of the workforce fired by Pocket Aces that owns FilterCopy
Amid the global recession there has been a trend of aggressive lay-offs, following Google, Amazon, Byju’s, is now a Mumbai-based entertainment start-up ‘Pocket Aces’, that owns the YouTube channels FilterCopy, Dice Media, Loco, and Gobble, has cut jobs and let go 25%of its total workforce.
A 2013 start-up, founded by Aditi Shrivastava, Anirudh Pandit, and Ashwin Suresh with a mission to promote digital entertainment has partnered with more than 150+ brands and has worked diligently on YouTube as well as OTT platforms such as Netflix. Firing off their 50 employees or 25% of their workforce, they have now begun another segment of recession. In an already unstable market due to the Adani-Hindenburg saga and worldwide recession, now all the sectors are being damaged.
Pocket Aces co-founder and chief executive Aditi Shrivastava commented that the company deeply cares about the people leaving and they will be provided with financial support, and ongoing health insurance coverage, along with their transition. They will also continue to work with many of them in a freelance model and help others with outplacements.
Pocket Aces has joined the long list of Indian start-ups that had to let go of their employees for corporate restructuring and re-evaluating. Following Byju’s, WIPRO, Go mechanic, and more than sixty other Indian start-ups have laid off their employees to cut costs.
This disastrous wave of firing full-time employees has created instability in the employment market where many people are rendered jobless. Similarly, it has created an atmosphere of stress among companies that have not yet announced any measure of cost-cutting.
On a global scale, layoffs are being carried out aggressively, the most infamous of which has been Google firing its employees. This action of letting go creates a vacuum in any industry, be it tech or entertainment. It causes a feeling of mistrust between employees and employers and can further affect their work performance.
No company can claim to be safe from the ongoing recession since the global market forces have created a flux keeping it tough for them to work in the present economic scenario. Similarly, there is diversification needed, a balance within a particular industry. These can also be labeled as post-covid measures and the companies are required to optimize and adapt according to the contemporary situation.
Pocket Aces has become one of the first 70 Indian companies that have laid off people as a measure of cost-cutting. Content, production, and post-production departments were most affected during this action within the company.
Pocket Aces stands as the statement on the lay-offs as they continue to march towards their vision of becoming culture creators that positively influence people via their content and products. Additionally, they had to take some difficult but necessary steps to keep their operating model agile and resilient. These operating model changes mean that they have had to move 20% of their team out of full-time roles.
Changing its operations now on, the firm is now to focus on creator-led content that won’t be lengthy much. As stated to the media, they will now be keeping a few of those laid-off employees on a freelance model.
The psychological impact of layoffs is much deeper than this economic instability. Firing the employees all of a sudden can cause a feeling of mistrust and hence negatively affect the overall working of the company. So it is important to keep in mind the mental health of the employees as well, which laying off doesn’t help much.
Firing employees without proper procedure can bring the morale down, in a similar incident Infosys allegedly fired 600 freshers who failed to pass the internal test. Among worldwide layoffs, every company has come up with some reason or other. It is also important to note the actions taken by the government to ensure that the people fired end up using their skills for the benefit of society.
Pocket Aces, an entertainment company, owns FilterCopy, Dice Media, and Gobble which are youtube channels focusing on the millennial and gen-z audience. Their content ranges to almost every genre. One of their shows is now part of a much bigger Over The Top (OTT) platform.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
