Indian workers staying at home despite easing of lockdown
- Shawn Liew
- Topics: Compliance, Flexible Work, Home Page - News, India, Leadership, News
Shopping malls, restaurants, temples and mosques are beginning to reopen for business as India begins to ease lockdown restrictions imposed since March 25 to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Are workers, however, ready to return to the workplace?
Employing about 820,000 workers in India, TCS, Infosys and Wirpo are some of India’s largest employers in the private sector – and they are asking their employees to continue working from home.
Over 95% of TCS employees and 97% of Wirpo employees are currently working from home, while only 2 of Infosys’ workforce has returned to the workplace since the introduction of the ‘Unlock 1’ phase in India.
TCS said they are “resuming operations in a phased manner in select offices with minimal capacity”, while Wipro said they are adopting a staggered approach towards reopening offices.
The latter expects less then 10% of their workforce to return to the workplace and would include only those engaged in projects that have not received approval from clients to be worked on from home.
In the long term, TCS believes that only 25% of its employees will need to work from its facilities and can work without spending more than 25% of their time in a TCS office.
Across India, most economic activities are expected to reopen in urban centres and financial hubs like Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, although strict restrictions will continue to be in place in cities such as Chennai, Mumbai and Gurugram, where cases of COVID-19 continue to increase.
