The Great Return to office begins in IT after a long Covid-induced hiatus

TCS, the largest IT services player, has told all its employees to be back at their deputed locations by November 15

After a long Covid-indu­ced hiatus, the information technology (IT) services sector is slowly opening up, with employees making a staggered return to their desks and executives travelling for in-person meetings with clients. 

Both employees and emp­loyers, it appears, are equally keen on returning to the workplace, albeit in a hybrid setup, found a recent report by the National Association of Soft­ware and Services Companies (Nasscom) and job listings portal Indeed. Starting next year, some 50 per cent of the workforce is likely to return to office for up to three days a week. According to the report, titled Nasscom Return to Workplace Survey, 70 per cent of the companies surveyed preferred a hybrid setup. It also found that IT services and global capability centres are likely to be early adopters of a long-term hybrid work model.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the largest IT services player, has told all its employees to be back at their deputed locations (their base branch) by November 15. TCS had in the past said that it aims to move to a 25/25 model in the future. This model expects only 25 per cent of its almost half-a-million global workforce to be in office at any point in time by 2025, with associates spending only 25 per cent of their time at the workplace. Within project teams, only 25 per cent of employees can be co-located.

“At present, we have about 5 per cent of our associates working from offices. Towards the end of calendar year 2021, we will encourage our associates to return to office, at least initially, before we switch to the 25/25 model,” said a TCS spokesperson. “This will be done in a phased and flexible manner, and will depend on respective team leaders and the requirements of each team/ project.”

The Nasscom-Indeed study also found that 72 per cent of organisations are looking at operating at a maximum 50 per cent employee capacity starting next year.

In China, Infosys has 91 per cent employees working from office, Infosys Chief Operating Officer and Whole-time Director UB Pravin Rao had said during the company's second quarter results presentation in October. However, in India, the US and the UK, 98.5 per cent are working from home, while in South­east Asia some 80 per cent are.

“Since October in India, we have been asking all the senior leaders to come to the office at least once a week,” Rao said. He added that Infosys is also asking senior leaders to have several interventions for employees at least once a month so that it can have a larger population coming to office.

The Nasscom-Indeed survey also found that compared to middle management, those aged below 25 and above 40 are the most eager to return.

At the Bengaluru-headquartered Wipro, over 85 per cent of the employees globally are now vaccinated with the first dose and over 50 per cent are fully vaccinated. “In India, our fully vaccinated senior colleagues can now come to the office twice a week,” said Wipro’s Paris-based CEO and Managing Dir­ector Thierry Delaporte at the second quarter earnings.

At Noida-based HCL Technologies, about 90 per cent of employees and their families are fully or partially vaccinated, and the company is looking at a phased return.

“We are also seeing that our employees [have] started coming in increasing numbers to the office. From 2-3 per cent, it has gone up to 5-6 per cent,” said Apparao V V, chief human resources officer at HCL during the second quarter results presentation in mid-October. “We are encouraging people to return. In the past month, we saw almost 30 per cent of the leadership coming to office.”

In the just concluded second quarter of financial year 2022, most IT firms said their leaders have begun to travel internationally for client meetings. 

Mid-sized firm L&T Tech­n­o­logy Services’ CEO and MD Amit Chadha said in late Octo­ber that he has been travelling and meeting clients in the US since August. "Our senior leaders are travelling. I travelled out to India to our Mysore campus for the first time after 18 months; 26 per cent of our employees are back in the office...Once people get their second vaccine completed and there's no third wave, I expect the figure to rise to about 50 per cent over the next three to six months and then stabilise at about 80-90 per cent in the next six months,” he said.

Most companies realise that the contours of a hybrid working model will take time to evolve since there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Rao of Infosys said the future of work will have to take into account client and em­ployee preferences. It is working on a model that provides flexibility to employees but also ena­bles Infosys to react to the external environment successfully.