One of the factors that will guide the return of employees to office in the Information Technology sector, most of whom are working from home for over a year now, is the pace of vaccination.
“In the current situation, obviously, companies are not intending to bring people back to the office now,” says Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) president Bharani K Aroll about the second wave of the pandemic. Based on findings of a survey it conducted towards 2020-end, HYSEA had earlier said some 30% of the IT workforce were expected to return by July this year.
“Looks like that may not be a possibility unless vaccination happens in large scale,” he said, adding the survey had also anticipated 60-70% of the workforce back in office by December. For now, less than 10% of an estimated 6.5 lakh IT employees in Hyderabad are working from office. They too are doing so mainly on account of the high level of data and process sensitivity of the BPO tasks they handle for sectors such as banking, insurance and healthcare as well as those in charge of IT and network operations.
For the IT industry and its predominantly young workforce, accelerating the process of vaccination would make matters a lot better. But as Mr. Aroll says, the shortage of vaccines has meant that the focus of vaccination remains on those aged above 45 years. This, despite the government extending since May 1 the immunisation programme to those above 18 years.
HYSEA, however, is hopeful of the vaccine situation to improve with time. Seeking to play the role of a coordinator, it has already initiated discussions with hospitals for vaccination of the IT workforce. “We are facilitating arrangements with hospitals and disseminating information to members,” he said.