24,400 TCS Employees Tested Covid Positive; But TCS Wants Employees To Return To Office | Work From Home Ends?

Social interactions are a social necessity, following the tune, India’s largest IT service provider, TCS will ask employees to come to work once the pandemic is over.

Shift Towards Offices

On Thursday, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said even though a “hybrid” model will be the new normal in the future, the company will ask its employees to come to work.

Further emphasizing on “I do want to make the point that people need to meet people. It is a social necessity.

During the company’s annual general meeting, he said “there will be a shift towards moving people to work when the pandemic gets over,”.

A Hybrid Model For Work

So far, 97 percent of its staff have been working from their homes because of the pandemic.

Adding that a “hybrid” model where people work from homes and also from offices will be the new normal.

Predicting the future, he said that TCS believes a “significant number” of people will be working from home in the future.

“The future of work will be somewhat hybrid where some people will work from home, sometimes people will come to the office. So, the hybrid will likely be the new normal.”

What About TCS Offices?

While answering a shareholder query on what happens to real estate, he said “We still believe that offices will be needed. The occupancy levels may go down. There will be a lot more collaboration spaces in offices once people start coming in to work,”.

TCS had first spelled out its 25-by-25 strategy, after the emergence of the pandemic.

This simply means that at any given point in time a fourth of its staff will be working from the offices by 2025.

Effect Of Pandemic And Employees Mental Health

Talking about the pandemic, he informed that 5 percent of its 4.88 lakh workforce was impacted by COVID-19 infections.

Although, 80 percent of them have already recovered.

On the topic of employees’ mental well-being, while working from home, he said the human resources department has reached out to every single employee.

The IT giant has also developed in-house tools to discuss other issues beyond work and also indulge in hobbies like art and films.

Moving ahead, he said TCS has a risk management framework that assesses the threats and how to mitigate the same when asked about fears of rising political instability in the world.