The New Normal
Humanity has been challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic leading to the cancelation of major events, economic shutdown, and job crisis for naming few. One of the biggest challenges were faced by workplaces to adjust their workforce to work from home without being physically present in the office.
But as we say that change is a way of life, similarly workplaces embraced the new normal and got accustomed to the changing times. Tech and IT giants decided to extend their Work from Home (WFM) policies even after the pandemic has lowered its peak, with many of them deciding not to return to offices till the summer of the next year.
Google: Leading path
Google is the first global tech giant to announce WFH till July 2021 for all its employees due to ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In the path set for other tech giants to follow, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc. in the internal mails written to the employees on 27 July allowed his employees to plan accordingly to work voluntarily WFH option till June 30, 2021.
These allowances are only for those where physical presence is not required in the office. And more specifically these mails and allowances are not only for Alphabet’s employees of the US but for employees in India, Brazil, UK, and many more regions also. Taking care of its employees, Google also gave $1000 allowances for home office needs.
Twitter: WFH forever
Twitter went a step ahead of Google’s allowances for its employees and allowed its employees to work from home ‘forever’. In one of the company mails, twitter said that the company was one of the first companies to go to a WFH model in the face of Covid-19, but [doesn’t] anticipate being one of the first to return to offices. For every employee who can continue working from home, even after the pandemic eases can continue to do so and that the company will make it happen.
Encouragement of remote work in early March was promoted by the company and is one of the first to announce a permanent work from home option.
Facebook: Following Trend
Twitter and Google set new precedents by allowing the majority of employees to work from home at least till 2021. Facebook followed the trend by extending its WFH policy till July 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Facebook will also be providing employees $1,000 for ‘home office needs’. Facebook is allowing its employees to voluntarily working from home until July 2021.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went a step ahead with showing an expectation for his employees to work remotely by 2030. He said that the shift will be normal and will require new tools to offset lost in-person interactions.
Salesforce: WFH for 2020
Salesforce, a San-Francisco based Software Company joining the trend of the market and offered its employees the option to work from home for the rest of 2020, regardless of when their local office opens up.
The company cleared its plan by stating that its plan to reopen offices will be unique for each office as the decisions will be based on the city by city basis. These decisions will be according to local governing bodies and the guidelines of a medical expert. The company also compared the process of reopening offices as the light dimmer, not a light switch.
The company aims for a return of employees as a phased approach starting with the employees that are most critical to our office operations.
TCS: New Normal
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) became one of the first major IT companies to announce work from home for its employees in April. IT firm expects that by the year 2025, it will have 75% of its 4.48 lakh global employees working from home, out of which, 3.5 lakh are in India.
25/25, the new model of TCS, is expected to require far less space in offices than occupied today. TCS’s chief operating officer NG Subramaniam said that they don’t believe that there is a need for more than 25% of their workforce at their facilities to be 100% productive. TCS brought the decision after firm briskly moved 90% of its workforce to an operating model called Secure Borderless Work Spaces.
Infosys: Innovates
After the decisions of the TCS, IT firm Infosys in June announced permanent work from home for 33-50% of its employees. As the Company did not face any major issues as about 93% of its 240,000 employees have been able to work from home within the first few weeks of the Covid-19 crisis. The company aims to focus on introducing a ‘flexible work from home model’ for its employees permanently. And the company in its analysis is confident about the productivity of its employees so far in this pandemic as stated by the Infosys Chief Operating Officer (COO) UB Pravin Rao to shareholders during the 39th Annual General Meeting on Saturday.
Wipro: Preparation for Post-COVID World
As per the data of Wipro, in August out of 181,804 of its employees, 95% were working from home.
As per reports of TimesNow, an incredible feat of execution and technology has helped 5 major IT firms – TCS, Infosys, HCL Tech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra together having over 11.38 lakh employees to deploy WFH policy for 10.81 lakh employees.