JE Viral Desk: Toxic work culture in offices is no myth, many employees struggle daily in the toxic environment they are forced to work just to earn their daily bread and butter. Amidst all this, a video from one of India's biggest ed-tech firms BYJU has sparked yet another debate on the same lines.

For the very first time, reports of BYJU'S toxic work culture began circulating online last year. Then employees of the firm called its work culture abusive and exploitative. From being asked to over-work to being treated harshly, numerous details have come to light about BYJUS’ office culture. And yet again, the video that surfaced recently has raised some serious questions.

The matter of the recent abuse in BYJU's office was dragged into the spotlight through a LinkedIn post by Masroor Jahangir. In the video, a female employee can be seen standing up to her seniors about remuneration and general mistreatment.

"Employees are facing a toxic and pressurized environment, with extended working hours of 12-14 hours a day, salary cuts, and feelings of being treated like commodities rather than valued team members," the post was captioned.

In the video, she alleged that they have not received their incentives for the last 12 months and no support on the same was provided by their top bosses. She also alleged that the work culture of her company is worst and there is no friendly FnF policy available.

The post was quick to gain traction on social media. It actively invited reactions from current and former BYJUS employees. 

Some employees who earlier worked at the company totally agreed with the video and said they had to go through even more while working in the company. These accounts shed light on a more pervasive and deeply concerning pattern of mistreatment, which many claim has had a detrimental impact on their mental and emotional well-being.

One employee wrote on LinkedIn wrote, "As an ex-employee of Byju's I can say in this video this is not even 1% what they do to us, they go to a very low level when it comes to harassment, they do different things to harass employees!! Force us to do sales no matter how, even higher authorities are also aware of all this if some raise their voice against them they all do planning and plotting make sure that person leave the job by themselves!! Not just us they are fooling parents as well, Toxic work culture!!"

Meanwhile, there was a section of individuals who came forward to defend the company and its work culture, suggesting that these claims may not represent the entire reality.

Sudeeti Chaturvedi, an ex-employee of the organisation said, "I feel that judging a book by its cover is really really wrong. Every coin has 2 sides and when you toss it, you can only see one, but you won't know the other side unless you are actually there. I agree incentives were not given, but the salary was not even stopped for a day. The people who are claiming they have not received their salaries have not completed their company requirements for it, probably that's why they suffered. I am not defending this company but trying to make everyone see the points that were never told."

"I understand that this girl did speak to people in cabins and didn't get a response, but that doesn't mean that people don't respond. She didn't approach the right people. Byjus is a big organisation, her reporting is in the sales department whereas there are different dept like Payroll, Ops, Incentives etc. She could have reached out to them. This company hired freshers of non-tech to tech domains, at a salary that no other company in the world could even imagine. Now when it is in a position where they can no longer afford them, they would definitely not make them work for free right? If they cut the salary to half, then also the same people will escalate."