Over 55% of Wipro employees vaccinated against COVID-19

More than 55% of Wipro's India-based employees have been vaccinated so far and the number is increasing daily, said the IT major's chairman Rishad Premji, while speaking at the company's 75th annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday. Wipro had 197,712 people on its rolls as of March 31.

"As of today, based on the self-declaration of our employees, we are aware that over 55% of our employees in India are vaccinated, and that number is increasing every day," Premji said.

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"We are fully there to support our employees, both in terms of providing access to vaccines, as well as encouraging them to get vaccinated," he added. 

Replying to questions from shareholders at the AGM, Premji said Wipro has on its own inoculated around 35,000 employees and their families since June when it purchased one lakh COVID-19 vaccines for the purpose of vaccinating staff across its campuses.

He added that the demand for the company-provided jabs is slowly coming down because people have more options. Premji noted that making vaccination mandatory for employees was not an option as it was an individual choice.

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Wipro has more than 160,000 employees based in India with around 60% of them based in big cities, and 40% working from their native places. 

The company stated that 97% of its employees worldwide have been working from home for the last 15 months as this was the most provident safe model to follow at this time and that Wipro may take up a hybrid working model in the future.

"We will certainly evolve into what's the right model for work going forward, and in the end, it will likely be a hybrid model of people coming into work some of the time and working from home some of the time," Premji told shareholders.