Kochi: The majority of the IT companies, both within and outside Kerala, do not have any immediate plans to ask the techies to return to offices.
Not just offices of foreign companies in Kerala, the home-grown firms in the state have also embraced the work-from-home option. The general stance is that work at offices need resume only after at least half of the people are vaccinated against COVID-19.
The companies faced no hurdles in developing software or in other IT projects due to work from home. Also, their productivity increased even as the expenses reduced.
The firms could cut down on huge expenses as the flight trips to the clients' offices in foreign countries were stopped. A prominent Keralite firm had to shell out over Rs 200 crore annually for foreign trips. The firm was able to fully save on that amount.
The firms, operating outside the IT parks, also significant reductions in the expenses for power, water, transportation and food during this period.
More than that, the difficulties that arose due to the time difference with countries such as America and Europe also were also resolved due to work from home.
The UST Global has 16,000 employees across India, but only 1200 are working from offices. Even in the large IT companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro, about 98 per cent (8.6 lakh) of the employees are working from home.
The TCS has announced that only 25 per cent of employees need to work from offices by 2025. Though Infosys has said those interested can work from offices, not even 2 per cent turned up.
Major IT companies to continue with the current option till:
UST Global - June
IBS - After the vaccination is completed
Suntec - April
ENVestNet- April
TCS - November
Infosys - Not decided
Cognizant - June
Google - September
Microsoft - Only half-day at the office
Apple - June
Amazon Express - July
Airbnb - August
Uber - June
