Earlier today, Hari V. Krishnan, CEO & MD, PropertyGuru Group sent the below message to all employees of PropertyGuru Group.

Dear Gurus,

As we navigate through the ever-evolving landscape of Southeast Asia’s property market, I’m reminded daily of the incredible journey we’ve embarked on together. PropertyGuru has grown to become the leading PropTech company in the region, a success made possible by our commitment to deliver solutions that guide our consumers to make confident property decisions every day.

Reflecting on my journey at PropertyGuru, I’m impressed by the foundational elements that have driven our growth. These elements, while pivotal in our past success, need to evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Our road towards operational profitability in recent years stands as a testament to your hard work and our collective commitment to focused investments and selective hiring. These strategies remain crucial as we step into 2024.

At the Q4’23 All-Hands and more recently at the 2024 Kick-Off, I emphasized that our business does not operate in a vacuum. Volatile market conditions and changing customer needs require us to adapt our strategy so that we can continue to grow sustainably. It’s essential that we periodically reassess our progress and take proactive steps to future-proof our business.

Last year, we initiated this process with strategic exits from Indonesia and FastKey, doubling down on process redesign in areas like finance automation and investing in upgrading technology with a better HRIS (Human Resources Information System) to enhance employee productivity.

Additionally, we made major organisational changes across our Group Marketing, Marketplaces, and Sendhelper teams to better serve our consumers and customers throughout their property journey. Complementing these changes, in 2023 we also streamlined our People & Culture model, focusing on agility and expertise, and reduced our Talent Acquisitions team to better align with our investment and strategic hiring focus.

Looking forward, I want to share important decisions that will help shape our path ahead:

Re-architecting the organisation

We are undertaking a comprehensive review to re-architect our organisation, ensuring we focus our investments on businesses based on their market potential. This involves continuing to evolve our organisational structure, team composition, operational processes, and smartly automating where possible, guided by a clear focus on our identified priorities. Some key decisions we are announcing today include:

•  Closing operationally non-scalable and non-profitable businesses including two of our nine branches in Vietnam related to our Marketplace business and the previously announced, complete sunset of FastKey.
•  Consolidating technology delivery to drive economies of scale and streamline our regional technology resources to improve collaboration and foster innovation.
•  Strengthening customer support by redesigning roles across marketing, product and enterprise sales to serve customers holistically and with enhanced value.

Impact to our Teams

Regrettably, these changes impact the roles of 79 Gurus, representing approximately 5% of our total workforce. This decision was made after careful and objective identification of the roles for PropertyGuru’s next phase of growth.

Impacted Gurus will receive a meeting invite for formal notification with their respective Group Leadership Team (GLT) or Group Management Team (GMT), and People & Culture (P&C) team in the next 15 minutes.

Supporting impacted Gurus in the best possible way

We understand that these decisions are challenging. I empathise deeply, having personally experienced both sides of such changes. We are committed to treating our Gurus with respect and care. As we part ways, we will be providing the impacted Gurus with the following:

• Enhanced Severance Packages: Severance of one month for each year of service capped at twelve months or country statutory severance pay, whichever is higher. In addition, we will be including the following ex-gratia benefits: 
  • A goodwill payment of 1-month base salary. 
  • Eligible 2023 annual performance bonus for impacted non-sales Gurus or sales commission for February and March (where applicable) for impacted sales Gurus.

• Extended Wellbeing Support: Medical insurance (or a lump sum payment in lieu) and access to our employee assistance program will be extended for three additional months from the last date of employment.

• Career Transition Assistance:
  • Outplacement service for three months with a personal consultant to support each Guru on career transition and job search.  
  • Laptops are an important tool to find the next opportunity and we will let everyone keep their work laptops. 

• Additional Support for Gurus on Employment Visas:
  • Up to 3 months of extended leave without pay based on local manpower laws.
  • Repatriation support for them and their dependents, if needed.
  • Financial support for early exits of residential tenancy.

To each departing Guru, the leadership team and I extend our heartfelt gratitude, and we wish you good luck. Your contributions have been important to our story, and we value the relationships we built over the years.

Later today, we will have Business Unit and Function team meetings led by your respective GLT member followed by an open house in each country with a GLT member present in your office. Please attend these sessions to understand more about these changes.

Today, I ask all of you to come together to support and thank our departing colleagues with utmost care and consideration. Let’s show our appreciation for their contributions and wish them success in their future endeavours.

Thank you for your dedication, resilience, and adaptability. As always, please reach out to your leadership teams if you have any questions or need support.

Sincerely,

Hari

To read the above message in Vietnamese, click here.

To read the above message in Thai, click here.