By Antony Mutunga
Massive layoffs in major tech companies have seen many lose their jobs, especially in big corporations such as Meta, Twitter, and Amazon. However, this is not only felt overseas; it has also hit closer home in Kenya. For instance, tech start-ups such as Kune Food, Notify Logistics, and Sendy have closed down due to high operations costs. Agri-tech firm Twiga Foods has also laid off a part of its staff.
However, Twiga Foods has defended its decision to lay off 211 of its staff as a part of a shift in its business model. The firm said it was transitioning its sales force to agents as it converted to an agency model where the independent agents will own certain portions of the market, interact one-on-one with consumers, and generate revenue from their sales.
According to Peter Njonjo, the Chief Executive Officer of Twiga Foods, the layoff resulted from this shift. “It was more around a change in the business model, and for that change to happen, we created redundancies of the 211 salespeople because that is what the law requires when you are transitioning from being an employee to being an independent agent, and that was the transition we had to make,” he said.
This comes after the company recently stopped working with expatriates to whom it provided various services across multiple departments; it reduced the staff per diem for the remaining employees from a high of Sh4,000 to Sh1,000.
With the firm stating that it is acquiring interest from many people who would like to be agents, it had first handed the first option to the affected parties to come on as agents. Peter Njonjo says the idea behind the move is creating opportunity, creating entrepreneurship, and allowing people to be their own boss.
“The way to think about it is like an M-Pesa agent who offers the services for Safaricom but isn’t really employed by Safaricom; they are independent entrepreneurs. We have basically transitioned from a model where sales agents are internal employees to where they are external agents,” he added.The move also comes after the company invested Sh1.6 billion to expand its business.
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