Permanent work from home policy means that global talent can now explore Swiggy as their potential employer: Girish Menon, head of human resources at Swiggy – Times of India

Food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy recently announced that it has introduced an industry-first ‘Moonlighting policy‘, wherein employees can take up external projects for pro-bono or economic consideration based on internal approvals. The policy allows employees to work second jobs, outside normal business hours of the primary job, under certain conditions. Last month, the Bengaluru-headquartered company also announced its permanent work-from-anywhere policy for the majority of its roles. In an interaction, Girish Menon, head of human resources at Swiggy spoke about the new ‘Moonlighting’ and ‘permanent from home’ policies, and the company’s other HR initiatives.
Q. What’s behind Swiggy’s permanent work from anywhere policy?
Being an employee focused organisation and keeping the wellbeing of the employees at the core, we were among the first to roll out a ‘remote first’ work policy in November 2021. Since then, we are witnessing how Swiggsters are leveraging this flexibility to build fulfilling careers while balancing their personal life with ease.
The decision to announce a permanent work-from-anywhere policy was made based on team needs and feedback from several managers and employees who vouched for the flexibility and increased productivity working from home has given them in the last two years.
Q. What are the roles that will be required to work from the office for a few days in a month?
Under the policy, the corporate, central business functions and technology teams will continue to work remotely and converge once every quarter at their base location for a week to promote collaboration and cameredie. Meanwhile, employees in partner-facing roles will work from the office twice or thrice a week at their base location and work remotely for the remaining days. This includes sales teams, fleet managers etc.
Q. Lately there seems also a view among certain companies that while hybrid work is here to stay, working from the office is important for team building and collaboration. This viewpoint was also highlighted by Google and Microsoft CEOs at the recent earnings call? What’s your take?
Swiggy has focused on being employee centric and its policies are derived from a deep need for welfare of employees. Our core values are reflective of this culture. For example, we give employees the freedom when it comes to working hours and do not monitor their login hours, we have ‘No Meeting Hours’ during the week for self-development and learning and our newly-launched Moonlighting policy are some examples of our employee backward thinking.
The decision to launch our ‘remote first way of working/permanent work-from-anywhere’ policy was made after feedback received from employees over several months. Infact, over the last two years, we have launched and scaled our Instamart and Genie services while working remotely.
To address concerns of collaboration and team building, we have set up quarterly in-person meet ups for employees working remotely to help connect and interact with their colleagues for a week. The first such meet-up was held in June and was a great success. It was a healthy combination of work and fun as it included everything from roadmap meetings, planning connects, 1:1 conversations to fun engagements and activities for teams to get together and enjoy.
Q. Do you think the work from anywhere policy will help Swiggy nurture new talent? Could you also share other initiatives taken for the same?
We strongly believe that the permanent work-from-anywhere policy will act as an enabler for employees to build fulfilling careers while balancing their personal life with ease wherever they may be. This also means that global talent can now explore Swiggy as their potential employer.
Q. Any other initiatives you would want to shed light on that might interest potential recruits?
Swiggy has a ‘Parenthood & Childcare Policy’ where the primary caregivers can avail 26 weeks of leave while the secondary caregiver can avail 12 weeks of leave. This covers adoptive mothers, single parents and caregivers, irrespective of their gender and sexuality. The policy offers several benefits through an employee parenthood journey to ensure a stress-free experience. Wellness session reimbursements, financial assistance for adoption and remote first ways of working during sensitive periods of pregnancy and childcare are part of this.
Then there’s a ‘Built Around You’ programme that offers employees unlimited tele/video consultation sessions with independent experts (such as doctors, dietitians, counsellors, psychologists, financial and legal experts) to customised digital and onsite wellness programs for the employees and their dear ones.
Swiggy’s IJP and rehire policies provide employees opportunities to move to the role of their aspiration/choice and aim to ensure that talent is always welcome and acknowledges that different stages of life have different needs.
On completion of a certain tenure with the organisation, Swiggy provides short-term and long-term sabbaticals (up to 365 days) to rejuvenate, spend time with family or for higher education/entrepreneurial stints.
Q. Please tell us about the new Moonlighting Policy at Swiggy?
We observed that some employees are getting opportunities to render gig services outside work leveraging their professional skills/or discovered new hobbies during the lockdown. Hence, as a progressive move, we have launched a Moonlighting policy which will enable employees to pursue their interests beyond work for economic value and will also gain richer experiences in the process.
Swiggy (we believe) is the first company in India to have a policy that permits employees to pursue passion projects (assignments / projects) outside of the workplace for free or for monetary compensation. We believe that these experiences will bring out the best in our employees, sharpen their skills and will also boost their professional and personal lives.
Any project or activity an employee takes up outside of office hours or weekends without affecting productivity on the full-time job comes under the Moonlighting Policy. This includes work in the professional/non-professional domain and for economic consideration.
Q. How are employees reacting to the new policy?
Our Moonlighting Policy has been enthusiastically received, and our internal communication channels are buzzing with employees appreciating the forward-thinking initiatives.