India Inc rethinks plans to reopen offices | Economic Times

A sudden spike in Covid-19 cases with several states witnessing a second wave of infections is nudging India Inc to reconsider the number of employees working from offices.Many companies had started bringing employees gradually back to office. But now, as a cautionary measure, work from home will continue for most of them till either there is a respite in cases, or a large part of the population gets the vaccine shots. Employees had also become wary of returning to work because of the new wave of infections.Employers are taking a local approach in deciding the number of employees who need to work from office, depending on the Covid cases in that city or region.Companies like the Piramal Group and Titan Industries have reduced the number of employees working from offices to a bare minimum in Maharashtra. Others like Deloitte, Oracle and Myntra are going to continue with almost all employees working from home.“With the recent rise in Covid cases, we have proactively reduced the number of employees coming into the Mumbai offices, from 30% to an absolute bare minimum,” said Vikram Bector, president and chief HR officer at Piramal. In Mumbai, the group has asked most employees to work from home till April 5.In the past week, Titan has also cut down on the number of employees working from offices in Maharashtra. "We are taking a call on the number of employees coming to the office based on the number of cases in that region. The number of employees coming to office in any region may change depending on the number of Covid cases." chief HR officer Raj Narayan said.The Piramal Group has offices in 30 countries, and each country has its own policies and regulations over the pandemic.“A single policy at the corporate level is not feasible for an entity like ours. Instead, we have chosen to decentralise this process and brought in more autonomy to such decision making,” Bector said.The group is also covering the cost of vaccination for its employees and their dependents.Apollo Tyres is not planning to increase the number of employees coming to office, said its president, Sunam Sarkar. “We have seen a successful implementation of a blended working model and feel no pressure to increase this percentage merely to have people back in the office,” said Sarkar.In the IT industry, “back to office for a majority is unlikely to happen before July-August according to our conversations with member companies”, said Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies. Most companies are closely monitoring the pace of vaccination drive in the country, she said.SAP Labs India has opened offices from February 15 for 10% of employees. It intends to go slow in increasing office occupancy while monitoring the Covid cases a spokesperson said.All employees at Oracle in India other than those in essential services are continuing to work from home until further notice.A Tata Steel spokesperson said the company is “continuously monitoring the situation and revisiting the safety and health protocols to address the new threats”.