Swiggy starts accelerator plan for delivery execs to assume managerial jobs

It's an industry-first move that will give such execs fixed pay and additional benefits; others likely to follow suit with similar schemes

On-demand convenience platform Swiggy today launched an industry-first accelerator programme for its delivery executives to transition into full-time, managerial-level jobs with a fixed salary and additional benefits. The programme, named 'Step-Ahead', is aimed at giving an opportunity to those executives who want to move from their current flexible engagement with Swiggy to a dedicated, managerial role.

With ‘Step Ahead’, Swiggy is formalising this process and intends to reserve at least 20 per cent of all Fleet Manager hires for its delivery executives. At present, Swiggy has over 270,000 delivery partners across the country.

To be eligible for the role of a Fleet Manager, a Swiggy delivery executive must hold a college degree, possess communication skills and basic computer knowledge and should have been delivering with Swiggy for a few years. Swiggy, in a statement said, it is also considering reducing the tenure requirement to around 2 years.

Managing a fleet of delivery executives, the fleet managers, will be responsible for different roles like maintaining metrics like login hours, cancellations, resolving queries, and working on special projects for delivery executives. Being well-versed with the challenges and opportunities at a ground level owing to their rich experience in delivery, seasoned delivery executives are a natural fit.

“Swiggy has consistently maintained that our delivery executives are the backbone of our operations. While most may consider their association with the platform as a stop gap between jobs or an education, or even an additional source of income, we realize that there are some who want more,” said Mihir Rajesh Shah, VP, Operations, Swiggy.

With ‘Step Ahead’, Swiggy is creating an opportunity for those interested to flip their collar from blue to white and take on a managerial role. Will others follow suit? To early to say, but this is certainly a new paradigm in the fast growing gig economy where in the recent past the tussle between aggregators and vendors have been complicated.

A case in point in Urban Company, which last year saw several of the women beauticians on its platform went on a strike. The issue was later resolved as Urban rolled out incentives and scheme that helped partners. Earlier this year, Urban also announced an industry first partner stock ownership plan (PSOP). Under the plan, the company will award stocks worth Rs 150 crore to several service partners over the next 5-7 years. The company will set up an evergreen trust to manage the PSOP plan, and award them at near zero cost to service partners. The company has already got board approval for the first tranche of Rs 75 crore worth of stocks, to be disbursed over the next 3-4 years.

While Swiggy and Urban Company worked with their vendor base, Zomato has had several incidents when delivery agents have went on strike and the company has not paid any attention. Point in case is last month, when several food delivery partners went on strike in Delhi for fair wages and employee benefits.