Renault India hikes employees’ salary by up to 15% despite Covid-19 shock

MUMBAI: French car maker Renault India is incentivizing over 250 employees with a pay raise of up to 15% for the current financial year after having bucked the trend in 2019 by being the solitary company to register growth.

Despite the lockdown drying out cash flows, Renault India Private Limited (RIPL) has gone ahead with promotions of over 30 executives and a raise for 250 employees effective August of 2020. Riding on Triber MPV's success and a small SUV lined up for the festive season, the company wants to ensure the morale of its staff is high to sustain the momentum.

Interestingly, the hike for FY-21 is bigger than FY-20 for RIPL wherein the company offered a hike of just 10-12%.


The pay hike is only for Renault India Private Limited employees and does not include the alliance plant with Nissan, where the French car maker has a 30% stake, and the R&D organization Renault Nissan Technology Business Centre India.

The legal entity Renault India manages sales and marketing, product planning and program management, after sales, customer service, quality and all the other support functions like finance, human resources, IT, admin and communication.

An email sent to Renault India did not elicit any response.

Experts said Renault India is well placed in the existing uncertain environment because of its strong, affordable vehicle portfolio. With disposable income hit and cash flows reduced, personal mobility will veer towards more affordable vehicles and Renault’s portfolio of four cars in sub-Rs 8 lakh bracket for the next few years, including a hatchback, a sedan, MPV and SUV may give the company an edge over rivals.

India has already broken into the top 10 markets for Renault globally and with the exit from China earlier in the year, the stakes on India are set to go up further.

Apart from protecting the interest of its own employees, the company was extremely swift in protecting interest of its dealer partners and vendors too

The company extended financial support to dealers in form of collateral free loans to pay salaries of their employees, apart from increasing margin on car and spare parts by 200-300 basis points. Renault also decided to bear the interest cost on unsold inventory at the dealers for the month of April.