Companies across sectors are scrambling to enforce ‘work from home‘ practices, as the government has ‘strongly advised’ India Inc to implement this policy and limit the spread of coronavirus. The companies are also trying to ensure that their operations are disrupted to a minimum.
“We have asked our companies in India to rapidly and extensively adopt work-from-home (WFH) practices to ensure that employees travel only in the most essential cases, excluding situations in which they are involved in the delivery of products and services for the larger public good,” said N Chandrasekaran, chairman, Tata Sons in a statement issued on Friday.
Several companies have voluntarily initiated work from home in the last few weeks. But this process will now be accelerated with the ministry of corporate affairs formally telling corporate India to implement a work-from-home policy till March 31. It has also asked companies to report their compliance on this issue by March 23. In Mumbai, and in some other parts of Maharashtra, the state government has directed that all corporate offices be shut down.
Hindustan Unilever, the country’s biggest consumer goods company, which had moved before the government’s guidance, last week announced that office-based employees will work from home using technology while field sales employees should connect with customers virtually wherever possible and minimise the use of public transport if a customer visit is necessary.
“Work from home is just one part of it. There is equal detailing and planning, which has gone in making sure that our manufacturing sites, our sales, our sales force, and R&D teams continue operations seamlessly. We have to continue to manufacture and ensure distribution of our products, which are essential goods and commodities and now more than ever,” said Anuradha Razdan, executive director, human resources, HUL, adding that 90% of its sales force are still servicing distributors.
Also, with shops selling grocery and essential products, many for longer hours due to panic buying, most companies including Godrej Consumer, Amul, Mother Dairy and Parle Products are putting in additional efforts to replenish stocks quickly.
A Flipkart spokesperson said the company was extending its work-from-home programme till March 31 in light of the recent developments and increasing need for social distancing. “We have not seen any significant disruption or negative impact on the business as we work remotely. Our employees are leveraging the power of technology such as video conferences to stay connected for meetings, and we are encouraging ‘Digital Chai Breaks’ and guiding people on ways to manage their day,” said the spokesperson.
For the services sector, work from home may still not be a feasible option, say companies.
Puneet Chhatwal, the CEO of IHCL, said the hospitality and tourism industry had not witnessed anything like this in the last 75 years. “At IHCL, we are working from home since March 16 and we have extended work from home till March 31. Essential staff is there at the hotels. The situation has worsened in the last two weeks,” he said.
IndiGo is allowing its office staff to work from home from next week, said an executive, although it hasn’t given any official missive. The airline is also segregating its airport staff into smaller groups with more frequent rotations and spacing out rostering for its crew. The latter is also helped by a lesser requirement of crew due to curtailed operations.
The telecom operators said they were strictly implementing the work-from-home drill but critical service staff involved in network management, customer care, IT back-end and call centre operations were on duty to prevent services disruption.
Vodafone Idea said a majority of its staff across offices were working remotely and had set in motion business continuity plans to ensure mission-critical processes were not disrupted as telecom is an essential service. Randeep Sekhon, chief technology officer at Bharti Airtel, said Airtel’s networks are in business continuity planning (BCP) mode and are fully prepared to support any exigency.
“All operations are running smoothly with over 80% employees working from home seamlessly,” he said.
Many real estate developers have asked their vendors and suppliers not to visit the company office and all the dues and other issues will be handled through emails and phone calls for follow-ups.
The Maharashtra government on Friday announced more restrictions short of a shutdown in the state. The measures included shutting down all non-essential services in the state including private offices, which will lead to closures automatically, said JSW and Tata Steel. Both these companies said that had already implemented work from home before the diktat.
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