IT firms in no hurry to stop remote working

“Despite the partial relaxation of the lockdown from 20 April, please do so (come to office) only if absolutely, absolutely essential. I plan to continue working from home because I can and want to make way for those that truly need to be out,” Wipro chairman Rishad Premji said in a tweet on Saturday.

At Wipro, 93% of its billable employees have received client approvals to deliver services from home. “There are certain types of critical work such as testing in our labs for 5G as part of our engineering services, which can’t be done from home. Then there are certain HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy requirements in the BPO business because of which customers may not give approvals to work from home,” Abidali Neemuchwala, CEO and managing director, Wipro told Mint recently.

IT companies based in Bengaluru such as Infosys Ltd, Mindtree Ltd and Dell Technologies had asked their employees to work from home even before the first lockdown, after some employees tested positive for covid-19. This is expected to continue for a while.

Public transport remains suspended. Mumbai, which has over 176 containment zones, is rigidly observing the lockdown. So is Bengaluru, an IT hub, which has clamped down on two-wheeler movement, with only essential service providers with permits being allowed. Mumbai-based TCS said during its Q4 earnings in April that it is in no hurry to bring people back and is looking at 25% attendance in the near future.

Bengaluru-based biotechnology major Biocon said on 27 March it has “significantly reduced the number of people in our facilities to only those who are required to carry out manufacturing and quality operations based on planned production schedules. All other employees are either staying back or are working remotely from home”.

This is likely to continue, said a Biocon employee on condition of anonymity.

―Livemint