India Inc sticks to work model despite rising Covid cases

Corporate India is sticking to its current work mode strategy with those that have opened offices keeping their doors open for employees despite Covid-19 infections rising across the country once again. Companies such as Panasonic and NTT Data Payment Services continue to have most of their employees coming to offices while others like ITC, Flipkart, Wipro, TCS and Deloitte are following a hybrid work model.

"While we have opened up our offices across locations, we continue to operate a hybrid model with employees having the flexibility to work from home up to 2 days in a week, with prior approval," said Amitav Mukherji, head of corporate human resources at ITC Ltd. But in case of any extenuating circumstances, employees can apply to work from home for a longer duration, he added. Flipkart has reopened its corporate office in phases and has adopted a hybrid model beginning March 2022 with different teams of employees working remotely and from office on different days of the week.
"By maintaining a flexible approach, we are able to customise solutions based on employee needs - for example, for certain types of roles and based on talent density, we have opened up additional offices in multiple locations across the country," said Krishna Raghavan, chief people officer at the ecommerce marketplace. "We will continue to remain flexible in our approach and modify our model as needed based on both employee needs and external factors at Flipkart." Companies are not letting their guard down with strict protocols at offices, tracking cases, and organising or reimbursing for boosters for staff.

Panasonic India is organising a vaccination drive for booster shots for employees while Deloitte is providing reimbursements for booster dose.

"We are continuing to exercise caution at work, be it social distancing or, following regular safety protocols," said Adarsh Mishra, chief HR officer at Panasonic India. "We have also installed Coronaguard filters as an added safety measure, in our office premises. We continue to encourage hybrid meetings to help employees manage their daily schedule smoothly."

At Deloitte, employees are coming to office only on the days prescribed by their team's requirements and must book seats on an internal app. "This is our preferred mode of working for now," SV Nathan, partner and chief talent officer at the professional services firm told ET.

NTT Data Payment Services, where almost all the employees were operating from office till recent rise in Covid-19 cases, is "currently operating at 50-60% capacity", its CEO Dewang Neralla said.

The country's top IT services company TCS is adopting a 25/25 model where no more than 25% of its associates will work from an office at any given point in time, and they need not spend more than 25% of their time in the office.

"But an important part of the journey to the 25/25 model is to first bring people back to physical offices and gradually transition into the hybrid work model," a TCS spokesperson told ET in an emailed response.

TCS has set up agile work seats worldwide, which allow its employees to work and engage with team members from any TCS office. It has also set up occasional operating zones (OOZ) and hot desks.