DELIVEROO’S Dh50,000 BONUSES PUT UAE RIDERS IN THE DRIVING SEAT
▶ Awards allows Dubai’s top performers to plan a future for their families
For six years, Pakistani resident Muhammad Khurram spent hours each day driving through the traffic on Dubai’s roads as a delivery rider.
In March, Mr Khurram, 35, received an early morning phone call that, he said, “changed my life”.
The father of two was one of thousands of Deliveroo riders around the world to receive a Dh50,000 ($13,612) bonus as part of the Amazon-backed British food delivery start-up’s Thank You Fund.
This coincided with Deliveroo’s stock market flotation.
Mr Khurram, who earns Dh4,500 a month, said the windfall would help to secure a better future for his family.
“When I first received the call I didn’t know it was coming. I was really surprised – just shocked,” he told The National.
“Then, I got a second call to confirm it. When I realised it was true I was so excited and told my family back home in Pakistan.”
Colleagues were happy for him, but some were jealous at first, Mr Khurram said.
“I have never been a rich person. Now I am a rich person.”
Working in Dubai for seven years, including a year in the restaurant industry, Mr Khurram can now fulfil his dream of starting a business back home.
Within the next few years, he plans to return to Karachi in southern Pakistan to open a cafe and be closer to his family.
His workmate, Muhammed Ali, 35, said he was still taking in the news, more than a month after finding out about the bonus.
“When I got the phone call, the woman told me that I would get a Dh50,000 bonus. At first, I didn’t believe it,” he said.
“It was a big surprise and a large amount of money, so I just forgot about it and didn’t tell anyone.”
After a few days, Mr Ali received an email from the corporate office and that was when he knew the call was genuine.
“It is one year’s salary and it would take me three years to save this amount, so it will totally change my life,” he said.
Mr Ali has a daughter, 3, and a son, 1, in Lahore, north-east Pakistan,
He said that within the next few months he would bring his family to the UAE on an extended visit visa.
His long-term goal is to start a business back home and return there within a few years.
“My father used to run a rice business so I could do that, or maybe invest in a vehicle spare parts business,” he said.
“It feels good to receive a thank-you bonus after working with the company for five years and actually, this is the first bonus I ever got in my life.”
The two are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment under the Thank You Fund worth Dh80 million, which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo’s £8 billion stock market listing this year.
The Dh50,000 payment is made to riders who completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of Dh5,000 and Dh2,500.
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive Dh1,000, the company said when it announced the scheme.
Deliveroo, which has more than 110,000 riders across its markets, including the UAE and Kuwait, said it expected about 36,000 riders in total to benefit from the payments.
Both Mr Khurram and Mr Ali are employed by a third-party rider agency in the UAE that loans riders to Deliveroo.
The men will receive their first tranche of payments from the delivery company this month.
The bonus will be paid in equal instalments of about Dh8,000 over six months until the full fee has been given to the drivers.
The Dh50,000 bonus payment is made to Deliveroo riders who completed the most orders in each market