Back in early 2013, there was a minor brouhaha on Quora about an ex-employee of Zomato talking at length about why he is an ex-employee and his not-so-pleasant experience there.
Many people took both sides of the argument – some, for Zomato and some, against it.
Zomato’s founder Deepinder Goyal joined the fray with a long, passionate defense of his company. It was a standard response, in terms of content, but high on passion and attitude that made all the difference to the tone of the content. Many start-ups have this attitude and I have seen it first hand at Flipkart too.
Attitude, by itself, is hardly a crime. It’s just that attitude can be perceived differently, by different people, depending on their orientation to a person/his or her thoughts. If the person/organization with attitude is mature enough to understand that, then it’s just a matter of living with the attitude and facing detractors appropriately.
Zomato (and Deepinder) has shown in the past that they are a bit different, at least in terms of transparency and speaking its mind out, compared to many other start-ups. They are more like Cleartrip, in my mind – bold, proud of the brand they are building and articulate about expressing it all appropriately.
Case in point – When , they blogged about it. I may have my grouses on how it was done (revealing the name of the agency etc.), but it was a unique, unprecedented (in India) move that got themselves 2 sets of perceptions.
– one, that they are completely above board… so they must be really good!
– two, OMG! They are so bitchy!
Zomato came under fire in the Lemp Brewpub case too. And they took to their blog to talk about the incident in as much detail as possible and clear their stand.
Two days ago, Zomato’s Deepinder tweeted an internal email as a pic.
This!
I do have an issue with exposing email IDs of people without seeking their permission (even though such emails are usually just a simple Google away). The tweet (that has now been deleted) got a lot of mixed reactions.
Here are some of those reactions (not quoting people verbatim; just using the overall sentiment) and my perspective on them.
1. Very unfair to expose the names of a. The other company trying to poach and b. The recruiter
The very point of this leak is to take all names in the open, particularly the other company in question (Times Internet). I do think getting the recruiter’s name out in open was largely unnecessary, but if you knew that he is not a recruiter at all – he is from another start-up and was merely connecting people – would your grouse change? In any case, I see that Deepinder did this for the effect. The effect needed names – without names, there is no impact.
Also, I send such introductory mails connecting two or more people almost every other day. If anything, I assume that more people will see Narayanan as a fairly well-connected person and may reach out to him via email or LinkedIn, to be in touch, for assorted reasons!
As for Times Internet, more people are now aware – in an unconventional way – that they need people. And may apply directly to Satyan!
2. Emails are private and are meant for the parties in question. With mails in the Tarun Tejpal case being leaked, more people are leaking emails in public than ever. Bad trend.
I hardly see it as a trend yet. Emails are being leaked – no doubt – but the leak happens because there is context in those mails worth leaking, for whatever purpose – PR, bitching, nefarious, pride etc. Not every email will be leaked because recently a couple of emails got leaked. Why they were leaked is the point.
3. As Times Internet’s Satyan tweeted, ‘Loyalty also means not alienating employees who might be interested in their career growth’.
I assume Satyan was trying to rebut the leak and the possible damage from it, but this doesn’t sound very convincing to me. Is he assuming that the career growth offered by outside companies alone is rewarding? And that the career growth in Zomato is not adequate? These questions are highly subjective – the best Satyan can do is convince a Zomato employee that the answer to these is a resounding yes, and that’s why they should move out. And that Times offers that magical mix missing in Zomato, so that’s why they should join Times Internet. It’s a matter of packaging the reason for leaving Zomato, reason for joining Times Internet and sound very convincing about it. For those who are convinced, it could be right; for those who aren’t, it may not be. A blanket conclusion on it doesn’t really help.
4. This will bite Zomato back. That person will leave the company and then we’ll talk!
My dad was in one job all his life. The current generation is not like that. When (and if) that person leaves Zomato, that’s hardly worth being surprised about. Opinions change. Perceptions evolve. Everything changes. If she was so loyal to Zomato today that she can send a response like this, who knows what can happen tomorrow? That’s up to Zomato, Deep and their HR to manage. The discussion about her leaving, connecting it with this email leak incident and having an opinion will be a minor blimp because things are that obvious. Everybody leaves companies – I don’t think Deepinder should be worried about that to not make this email public.
5. This is bad PR. It puts Zomato in poor light, that they have to leak internal mails to show their employee culture.
I disagree. This is new-age PR. It is irreverent, unconventional and bold. It pisses off a few people, but everything pisses off a lot of people anyway. If it gets Zomato people who are equally passionate, then I think the leak has achieved its purpose in terms of forming that perception.
6. This shows how cut-throat the start-up ecosystem in India is, what with such rampant poaching…
Is this some sort of a mystery? One has to be really naive to assume that poaching between start-ups doesn’t happen. If there was a legal no-hire clause for some reason, I can understand that, but for all other purposes, it is a free-for-all and each person for himself (or herself). People decide on their own whenever they want to leave a company or join another one.
7. Deepinder is a cocky <expletive>
Yeah, so? Cocky could be seen as confidence. The adage about thin line between cocky and confidence is misleading – it is in the eye of the beholder – there is no universal truth. You could cite specific examples, but you’d always end up having people on both sides of the argument.
8. There are better ways to promote your work culture!
Of course. There are many ways to do everything. This is just one way, and I think it stands out. It’s a bold display of confidence that is rare. Employees do not respond like that normally, particularly to a larger entity like Times Internet. If they do, it sure is worth spreading outside to showcase and win brownie points for building a enviable work culture. Is it something everyone should start doing? I don’t think so – it depends on individual organizational context and the kind of tone they have built for themselves.
9. I have heard from friends that Zomato is actually quite bad and people have left it in the past for that reason.
I’m sure I can find people to say good and bad things about every single company (except a sole proprietorship, in which case, the owner needs to be a schizophrenic to bad mouth his own enterprise). These are just perceptions that are built due to a lot of factors. The leak doesn’t make Zomato a magical place to work in; it merely creates a perception, for those who are receptive, that it is.
10. That employee won’t get a job anywhere else since she rebuffed a potential offer so rudely.
I don’t think so. I’m sure enough start-ups would take this as a challenge to offer her something that she can’t refuse, if she’s that good. The logic could be, if she is this loyal, imagine getting a loyal person to our company!
11. If Times does indeed conduct a career fair in Zomato, many would leave Zomato and join Times.
This is merely a hypothetical situation. The leaked mail does not speak for every employee in Zomato – it is one confident and proud employee’s perception of Zomato’s work culture. If more employees think on these lines – great! If many/some don’t, that is totally understandable. People are different.
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So, I can hear your exasperated shout: are you for Zomato or against it?
Life and perceptions are not that black and white. I personally think what Deepinder did was cutting-edge PR for Zomato’s employer branding. He used a situation to send out a unique sign out to the market in an unconventional way. He breaks a couple of rules in doing so and that adds to the overall outlook he has cultivated anyway, and adds to the image.
Besides that, I really don’t think anybody lost anything because of this mail leak. I don’t think this is something that Satyan needs to be perturbed about, enough to rebuff. It is an unconventional salvo, no doubt, and it perhaps deserves an equally unconventional rebuff without getting emotional about it. It needs a clever repartee, to stay in the same tone and remain on top. Talking about a few Zomato employees connecting with him on LinkedIn and a note about loyalty etc. are functional responses at best, not interesting enough to outdo the email leak.
If I was Satyan, I’d manually retweet Deepinder’s original tweet with, ‘Waiting to hear about date/time for career fair :)’ in the front.