Companies make cautious start to resume work from office

Companies are making a cautious start to resume office for a section of their workforce as the country on Monday entered lockdown 4.0 with more relaxations, putting in place required social distancing and health protocols to ensure safety of their employees.
While some such as Dabur India have already called back one-third of their staff, most firms including Capgemini, Flipkart, Power Finance Corp, NTPC, ITC, Tech Mahindra, Panasonic, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, and RPG Group have opened offices with smaller teams and plan to increase the numbers in a phased manner, companies said.

Some like Deloitte and Ericsson India are yet to take a call on when to start offices while Deutsche Bank and Cognizant said they will encourage staff to continue to work from home as far as possible.

A Sudhakar, head of human capital at Dabur, said the firm will increase employee strength at the workplace based on regulations announced by individual state governments. “Every state has its own rules, we will follow them accordingly,” he said.

Companies are also waiting for more clarity on issues such as interstate, inter-district and inter-zone travel restrictions, and the availability of public transport even as they maintain that health and safety of employees are their top priority.

As part of its phase-wise approach to open office, Capgemini has started with Bengaluru, Pune and Noida, bringing less than 5% employees. “Our other offices will open shortly,” said Venkat Neelakantan, company vice president and head of its corporate real estate services, India and Asia Pacific. “We will increase this number gradually, depending on the guidelines, to 25-30% over the next couple of weeks.”

Wipro is adopting a staggered approach towards reopening offices. “During the initial phase, we expect only 10% of our workforce to return to work from our facilities. These would primarily be those who are engaged in projects that haven’t received approval for work from home from the customers,” said a company official.

S Venkatesh, president – group HR at RPG Enterprises, said the firm will operate at 10-15% staff strength across all offices and “gradually increase employee bench strength at offices to 33%”.

Axis Bank has put in place a three-phased strategy to resume work at office and currently has up to 10% of its employees working from large offices, its HR head Rajkamal Vempati said.

State-owned non-banking finance company Power Finance Corporation is working with 20% employee strength in office. A company spokesperson said it will review the situation on May 31 when the new phase of lockdown ends.

Power generation behemoth NTPC has 10-15% of people coming to its offices. “In cities like Delhi, which houses our head office, and non-red zones, senior officials and their support staff are now coming to office,” a company spokesperson said.

Panasonic India is operating at around 25% manpower. Its chief HR officer Adarsh Mishra said that company is “waiting for separate declarations to be given by the Delhi and UP governments before we take further steps”.

Boston Consulting Group is looking to start returning to regular operations from this week in a calibrated manner. “We will take these decisions on a location by location basis based on the guidance issued by the state authorities,” said an official.

While announcing extended lockdown until May 31 on Sunday, the Centre left it for states to demarcate areas for different zones and decide on interstate intrastate movement of passenger vehicles and buses.

A senior official at Deloitte said the company is waiting for clarity on what each state is looking it. “A review is underway… If WFH (work from home) works, why not continue that?” the official said.

Deutsche Bank and Cognizant, too, said they will encourage staff to continue to work from home as far as possible. “For those colleagues that will begin returning to office as the lockdown eases, we are taking all necessary steps to ensure that the workplace is safe and healthy,” said Madhavi Lall, India HR head at Deutsche Bank.

Companies said they would not compromise on the health and safety of their employees.

An Ericsson India spokesperson said the Swedish gear maker’s decision to open its offices will depend on its own assessment of the situation. “Given that the health and safety of our employees is of paramount importance, we will be carrying out a thorough safety and diligence process, before opening up the offices,” the person said. The Swedish gear maker's network engineers and field staff though continue to ensure that telco networks run smoothly and connectivity is provided to customers in these difficult times.

Marico plans to open its offices in a phased manner. “Even if the government has allowed 33%, we will begin with a smaller group, seek the feedback from our members and office admin team, and then begin to open it for a slightly larger group,” a company spokesperson said. Marico is headquartered in Mumbai that has the highest number of Covid-19 cases.

Tech Mahindra is planning to allow a small number of critical associates to work from office, depending on local and state regulations. “Our senior leaders are personally visiting different office locations to ensure our facilities are fully geared up,” its chief people officer Harshvendra Soin said.

Bharti Airtel has reopened offices in a staggered manner in the Covid19 green zones and plans to reopen the rest next month.

An ITC insider said the company is reviewing the situation regularly and will gradually enhance work from office.