After Laying Off 10% Workforce, MPL Makes Changes In ESOP And Compensation Structure

Mobile gaming unicorn, Mobile Premier League (MPL) has introduced a slew of changes in its ESOP and employee pay package structure lately. These changes include a reward system for teams, changes in ESOP vesting period and altercation in employees’ compensation structure.

MPL will be rewarding teams rather than employees for achieving targets and delivering good performance. Similarly, the startup has reduced its ESOP vesting period for employees from a few years to months and also, merged fixed as well as variable components in the employees’ salaries. 

MPL further said that earlier, employees were granted ESOPs at the end of a cliff period (after completing a year in MPL). Following the cliff period, employees were granted the first batch of ESOPs and then, the second batch of ESOPs in the next year and so on. Under the new ESOP policy, employees can vest ESOPs immediately after a cliff period.

For instance, if an employee completes one year in MPL, then he will be allotted the first batch of ESOPs in the first month, the second batch in the following month and so on.

The latest developments come after MPL sacked 10% of its total workforce which is equivalent to 100 employees across its verticals. Besides, the startup also exited the Indonesian market and ceased its streaming services in that country.

As per the latest announcement, MPL’s employees will now receive their CTC (cost-to-company) as a fixed component from June onwards. Besides, teams that will over achieve their net revenue goals will get incentives of up to 24% of the exceeded sum. 

“At MPL, we have some of the finest professionals in the industry. We believe that we must also give them the best reward system. This new approach makes the reward process completely transparent. More importantly, team performance will now take precedence over individual achievements. When the team wins, everyone wins,” Sai Srinivas Kiran G, cofounder of Mobile Premier League, said. 

Coming to its updated ESOP policy, MPL has widened the period of availing an ESOP for employees that exit the company, from the earlier 30 days to 10 years from the vesting date. 

In case of a sudden demise of an employee and disabled ones working in the startup, immediate vesting of their unvested ESOPs will be done.  

According to an Inc42 report, 16 Indian startups including Razorpay, Pine Labs and Rebel Foods among others, granted over $159 Mn ESOP buybacks to their employees until May this year.

Recently, B2B unicorn Udaan altered the vesting period of its ESOP policy to a quarterly period from its yearly plan. Besides, Paytm’s parent One97 Communications also granted ESOPs worth INR 220.7 Cr to its employees in May this year. 

Earlier, Zomato’s CEO Deepinder Goyal donated worth $90 Mn proceeds that he received after vesting his ESOPs to Zomato Future Foundation. 

These moves are suggestive of how startups are presently trying to retain existing employees while luring talent across diverse sectors. Owing to the funding winter, trimming costs and constant layoffs that are happening in the startup ecosystem, employees have lost their confidence in the new-age startups and are going back to Indian corporates that promise stability and steady growth to them.  

If we talk about the great layoffs that are happening across startups segments, so far, 9,949 employees have been sacked by Indian startups including Cars24, Ola, Meesho, Trell and Vedantu. In the month of June, so far, 10 startups laid off 1,190 employees while in May, a total of nine startups sacked 3379 employees in aggregate. 

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Updated on 20th June, 2022

The story is updated to include new changes introduced in ESOP policy of MPL