Infosys Expects 35% Of Staff To Work From Home Amid Covid-19 Crisis

As work from home (WFH) model becomes the norm due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Infosys, the country’s second-largest IT services firm, is looking at allowing at least a third of its workforce to work remotely over a period of time, according to a media report. The company, however, did not give any time frame for this.

“Once things are normal, over a period of time, probably 50 per cent of employees will come to office and the rest will work from home. Moving on, 66 per cent will be in office but 33 per cent will work permanently from home,” Richard Lobo, executive vice-president and head of human resources at Infosys, was quoted as saying in a report by Business Today. If implemented, around 80,000 staffers globally will work from home at any point of time of the company.

Earlier, TCS had said the company could look at 75:25 work model where a whopping 75 per cent of its more than 440,000 employees globally would work from home by 2025. However, in the annual general meeting, Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran had termed it as ‘guesstimate’.

More than 90 per cent of staffers of most IT services firms are working from home. The companies are in no hurry to bring them back despite the relaxation in lockdown. In an interview last week, Krish Shankar, group head of HR at Infosys, had said the company was planning to bring back employees to office in tranches. “It will take time. In smaller centres, people are coming back in higher numbers.”

Apart from TCS and Infosys, HCL Technologies is exploring the option of making WFH a permanent feature. Its CEO, C Vijayakumar, had said while around 50 per cent of its employees would work from home in the next 12-18 months, it could be part of its long-term operating model.

While companies are planning to adopt WFH in a significant way, experts are raising concerns over the security issues arising from such working model. However, many see future operating model to be hybrid one with lesser requirement of approvals from clients for WFH option.