Wipro asks employees to work in office three days a week

Starting from October 10, the offices and campuses of IT major Wipro will remain open for at least four days a week, and employees have been asked to work in office for at least three of these days. An email advisory announcing this ‘back-to-office policy’ was reportedly sent to Wipro employees. The Wipro offices will remain open on four weekdays – Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

"Our carefully deliberated back-to-office policy is meant to allow employees the flexibility of remote work while ensuring that our teams can access experiences as well as opportunities and build meaningful relationships at work,” Wipro has said in a statement. “We encourage you to work from the office on at least three of the four days. This will help us enjoy the camaraderie and team spirit of connecting in person while maintaining hybrid work flexibility,” the email to the employees read. According to Moneycontrol, employees working in leadership roles would work out of offices three times a week. The IT major also added in its email, “Let’s look forward to sharing ideas more freely, learning from each other and years of having lunch or coffee together.”

The move comes two weeks after Wipro chairman Rishad Premji fired over 300 employees of the company, after they were found working with one of its competitors at the same time. Premji, who had expressed his disagreement about moonlighting previously, said that he stood by his recent comments on moonlighting being a “complete violation of integrity”.  The term moonlighting refers to the practice of working on a second job or multiple other work assignments apart from one’s full-time job. It has become a widely debated issue in the IT (Information Technology) industry since the COVID-19 pandemic made remote working the norm, which is believed to have led to a rise in dual employment.

Earlier in September, another IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had also asked its employees to work in the office for at least three days a week.