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The fear of Omicron has triggered discussions among several C-Suite executives on how to go about with return-to-office strategies. With reports suggesting that Omicron cases might see a peak in February, IT firms are in a ‘wait-and-watch’ mode.
“As of now, there is no change in plans of IT firms to make at least 30-40 per cent of the employees return to offices by March. There is no suspension of the earlier intimations that want the staff to come back to offices in a staggered manner,” Bharani Kumar Aroll, President of the Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA), told BusinessLine .
He, however, admitted that the firms are keenly watching the situation. “It is a kind of wait-and-watch situation. The firms are watching how the numbers (Omicron cases) are growing up,” he said.
‘Cautious approach’
Unlike in the second wave, the IT firms are now in a comfortable position as over 80 per cent of the employees have taken two doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
“I don’t see stringent lockdowns coming in the way, but I think there will be some cautious approach of people going back to work-from-home model for a while before they really start (returning to offices),” Karthik Natarajan, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of Cyient, said.
“There will be short term disruptions. We are seeing that right now in the USA. Just over the last 14 days, there is a growth of 50 per cent in the number of cases,” a top executive of a multinational IT firm said, adding, “We were hoping to reopen offices in January-February. We will keep it very flexible.”
Hybrid model
As of now about 8-10 per cent employees of the IT and IT-enabled services companies are going to offices. The number, however, varies in when it comes to small and mid-size companies.
“While the small companies (with under 300 employees) are witnessing about 75 per cent of their employees coming to offices, the mid-sized companies (with employees in the range of 300 to 1,000) are seeing 20-25 per cent of their staff coming to offices,” Bharani Kumar said. It, however, doesn’t mean all those employees are coming back to offices for all the five days in a week. The firms are offering a hybrid model, wherein the staff can come 2-3 days a week, reducing the number of employees at the workplace at any given point of time.
The good news, he said, is that the Omicron doesn’t seem to be causing serious health issues for a while before they really start returning to normalcy.
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