Govt Relaxes 'Work from Home' Norms - IT firms to Make fresh Announcements Soon! - Details

Among the various dynamics of the business sector which began working from home since the on-set of the coronavirus pandemic, IT and ITeS industry was part. While the work from home practice was to only be encouraged until July 31, in India, the telecom department on Tuesday, extended the same.

The exemption has now been postponed to December 31, 2020. "In view of the ongoing concerns due to Covid-19, the department has decided to further extend these relaxations up to December 31, 2020..."

This move has received a warm welcome from the industry. Chairman of Wipro, Rishad Premji tweeted shortly after the announcement. His tweet read, "Thank you to the government for their tremendous support on the new ways of working from day 1. This has helped tremendously in further elevating our standing and responsiveness globally."

"Thank u @rsprasad n Secretary @DoT_India for your strong support for Indian IT. This will ensure business continuity n employee safety.. n also increase our talent pool to tier 2 n 3 cities," tweeted Debjani Ghosh, the President of Nasscom.

Hence the Indian IT industry is aiming at providing permanent relaxations to employees, thereby, enabling them to work from home so as to optimise their real estate and adopt a blended model of both working from the office and home. In line with this, various IT giants, including Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, and so on, had announced their work from home model.

While some of the aforementioned companies have been working with less than 15% workforce at the office premises, some others can gain productivity and profit with less than 5% workforce at the office. Some other IT companies are also yet to adapt to these unprecedented times.