NEW DELHI : Only about a tenth of India’s $191-billion IT and IT enabled services (ITeS) industry may end up working from offices in the months ahead, according to industry body Nasscom and industry executives.
Nasscom had earlier advised its members to start with 15-20% of their workforce in the first phase, though home ministry guidelines allowed IT and ITeS firms to operate with 50% strength from Monday.
The industry body has however revised its guidance, given the spread of the covid-19 pandemic and increase in the number of containment zones. Besides, companies would rather wait to see the situation normalize further instead of risking another reorganization in case infections flare up after the curbs on movement are lifted.
“Our back-to-work guidance to the industry would be to allow about 10% workforce in phase 1 given the current environment. Many areas are sealed and are containment zones such as Noida, Greater Noida, Pune and Telangana. There will be no action there," said Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice-president and chief strategy officer, Nasscom.
The downward revision of the guidance is based on the lockdown situation in several states as many have decided to not to make any relaxation till 3 May because of the severity of the covid-19 outbreak. Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Karnataka have already said that companies will have to keep premises closed during the lockdown. The Telangana government has extended the lockdown in the state till 7 May.
Currently, about 90% of IT employees and 70-80% of BPOs and small and medium businesses in the sector are estimated to be working from home to ensure business continuity, according to reports.
Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is in no hurry to bring people back and is looking at 25% attendance, it said during its Q4 earnings on 19 April. “We believe that 25% of employees in our offices, spending only 25% of their time at location, can make 100% of the people productive," N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer, TCS, had said.
The IT sector has transitioned fairly well to the work-from-home (WFH) option and client delivery has been relatively smooth, said experts. Companies are thus focusing on strengthening the tech infrastructure at homes for employees and making it more robust in case another spell of lockdown is announced. This includes ironing out issues related to WiFi connectivity, security and telecom, and investing in hardware and software for working from home.
This makes sense, especially after IT companies received the requisite permissions from clients for WFH and have invested time and resources towards this end, said industry executives. As much as 93% of Wipro’s billable employees have received client approvals to deliver services from home.
However, many functions will require a secured, on-premise environment, and these tasks may have been fewer during the global lockdown. Financial sectors such as payments, especially retail or transit payments, are sharply reduced but will ramp up again. “In the steady state, I don’t see 90% WFH being sustainable. Maybe 60-70% and that could gradually become the new normal," says Prasanto Roy, a policy consultant and tech writer.
The lockdown period is probably harder for freshers who have to go through training modules on their own.
