“Urban Company’s Partner Stock Ownership Plan (PSOP) will help thousands of service partners become shareholders of the company, thereby enabling broad-based wealth creation through equity sharing,” said Raghav Chandra, Cofounder of Urban Company. “This is perhaps the first of its kind plan globally, where gig workers become shareholders of the very platform they work with. This will allow our service partners to benefit from the company’s growth in the coming years. This PSOP plan underscores our commitment to empower service partners and treat them as equal stakeholders in the company building journey.”
The company will set up a fair and meritocratic process to grant these stocks, taking into account both the performance of service partners and their longevity on the platform. The entire process will be rule based and transparent, with an advisory panel providing overall guidance.
“Over the years, Urban Company has put in many programs such as up-skilling, training, group insurance coverage, personal loans, vaccination support, etc. to empower the service professionals on its platform,” said Abhinav Chaturvedi, Partner with Accel, and an investor and board member of Urban Company. “The PSOP plan is a step forward in this direction for partners to financially benefit from the value created on the Urban Company platform.”
Urban Company has always had a structured approach towards partner development and well-being centered around 4 key pillars: improved earnings, safety net, training and wealth creation. As per the recently released UC Earnings Index, partners who delivered at least 30 orders a month, earned Rs 30,455 per month, with the top quartile of partners earning Rs 38,263 per month. Referring to the findings of PGA Labs’ Earnings Benchmarking Study, Urban Company said its partners earn at least 60 per cent higher net monthly earnings than their offline counterparts while working for considerably fewer hours (almost 50 per cent less).
To upskill service partners both on technical and soft skills, the company has also made significant investments in training. The company’s training programs range from 7 days to 45 days, depending on the candidate’s skill level and profession chosen. Since 2014, the company has invested more than Rs 100 crore in the training and skilling of its partners. The company operates over 100 training centres pan India, and has an in-house team of over 200 full-time trainers.
Urban Company said it also offers a safety net to its partners in the form of insurance and access to financial support. All active partners on the UC platform in India are covered under the Group Life and Accidental Insurance cover. Some of the key aspects covered under the policy are life insurance (Rs 6 lakh), disability cover (Rs 6 lakh), accidental hospitalization Rs 70,000) and accidental OPD treatment (Rs 10,000). The firm said a sizable proportion of its India service partner base also enjoy the benefits of a group health insurance scheme free of cost, which UC is committed to rolling out to more partners over time.
 "Urban Company")
