NEW DELHI: SoftBank backed Oyo on Wednesday announced pay cuts and 'leave with limited benefits' options for its staff in India. In an email to employees, Oyo CEO Rohit Kapoor stated the company is asking all its employees to accept a reduction in their fixed compensation by 25% effective for the April-July 2020 payroll period. ET has seen a copy of this email. Kapoor also said the company had to take the 'hard decision' of placing some employees on leave with limited benefits from May 4 for four months until August 2020. Oyo confirmed the developments."Those going on this leave will avail benefits such as continuation of medical insurance and parental insurance, school fee reimbursement and ex gratia support," Kapoor stated in his email and went on to add that in case there us an unforeseen medical emergency, Oyo will support these employees beyond the insured amounts if the need arises."You will hear more details from your leaders and HR partners," Kapoor's email to employees stated.Oyo did not specify how many employees will be put on leave with limited benefits for four months in India but sources familiar with the matter said 60% of the corporate staff at the company will be put on this plan. "This will also include profiles like VPs, AVPs, directors and other managerial staff at the company. Leave with limited benefits means Oyo will deduct 25% of their salary in April, 50% of the salary in May and June and will undertake 100% pay cuts for them in July and August. Five cuts over five months...The 40% employees who will continue working will have to undertake a 25% pay cut till July," a source said.On the 25% pay cuts measure, Kapoor said the action will be planned in such a way that post the proposed pay cut, the fixed compensation for any employee is not less than Rs 5 lakh per annum. "This ensures a large percentage of our colleagues at lower pay scales see no impact," he stated.On April 8, while announcing furloughs for employees across the globe and referring to the government advisories in India on pay cuts and layoffs, Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal had said given the government advisories in India, it remains committed to ensuring that all employees in India get salary and benefits during the ongoing lockdown which was scheduled till April 14 and got extended till May 3.Referring to the 25-50% voluntary salary cuts taken by the executive team around the world and other measures, Kapoor said in his email that while Oyo is taking all the necessary actions to mitigate COVID-19's impact and ensure long term success and sustenance of the business the efforts undertaken so far may not be enough as the extent and projected length of the crisis is highly unpredictable. "So despite our best efforts, we have had to take a few more actions that will unfortunately impact our team members across the globe including in India," Kapoor stated.Agarwal had told his employees that a significant number of its workforce across countries was being placed on temporary leaves or furloughs for 60 to 90 days because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In January, Oyo had announced a restructuring exercise aimed at reducing costs and it involved a significant number of job cuts.