The YesMadam case goes from being bizarre to ridiculous. Barely a day has passed since the news of about a 100 employees of Yes Madam being fired for admitting to being stressed grabbed headlines and sent social media into a tizzy. Now the company that offers at-home salon services has issued an apology and clarified that no employee was fired and that those who had felt stressed had actually been given “a break to reset”.
The Noida-based startup’s clarification said that the whole episode was part of the firm’s “planned effort to highlight the serious issue of workplace stress.” In the clarification, the firm goes on to thank the people who spoke up and “voiced strong opinions” because “When people speak up, it shows they care – and care is at the heart of our business”. The clarification asserts that YesMadam considers its team as “family” and that it would never take such an inhuman step. What is funny is that this same firm inhumanly played with the emotions of the very employees it values along with so many social-media users whose hearts went out to the “fired” employees.
The clarification is hard to believe because the e-mail reportedly shared by an employee on social media post the stress survey clearly indicated otherwise. No words were minced when the company stated that it valued the feedback of the stressed employees but “To ensure that no one remains stressed at work, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with employees who indicated significant stress.” If that wasn’t clear enough, the mail went on to say, “This decision is effective immediately and impacted employees will receive further details separately. Thank you for your contributions.”
If it was an exercise to spread awareness about workplace stress, YesMadam surely failed miserably. It only made things worse for the stressed employees by turning their anxiety levels up a notch. And what about all the social-media users who read the post and the reactions that followed, and worried about the well-being of the employees who were supposedly rendered jobless for being honest?
YesMadam has surely erred by playing with the sentiments of thousands of people who read the post and are now unable to trust what they read on social media.