COVID-19 impact: Infosys to prefer flexible 'hybrid' work model for employees

IT major Infosys on Wednesday said that it will prefer a flexible "hybrid" work model that will allow its employee work from different locations at different times. Starting next year, the company will allow its employees to work from home or office in view of uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

Infosys CEO and MD Salil Parekh, at a virtual conference, said the company has built a flexible model to provide work from home but it is now time to start working on building "social capital". 

Going forward, the company will focus on putting in place a hybrid work model as it will depend on how the situation evolves, he said, adding that "the flexibility will remain critical".   

"Having said that we also feel this whole concept of social capital is extremely important. We think that it is important as the COVID situation gets behind us, we start to create that social capital again so will have more and more work from the office environment as well. We have not decided the exact approach it will take," he added.

Infosys is likely to adopt the hybrid work model from 2021 when employees will not be required to be present in the office for at least the next six months.  

Post-June, the company will take a call on how to proceed depending on the pandemic situation and vaccination status.  

Krish Shankar, Executive VP and Group Head of Human Resource Development, said that it is likely that most companies will continue with the hybrid kind of work model in future, but it will differ according to the nature of the work.  

The flexible work model will allow more women, especially those who are engaged in caregiving roles at homes, to become part of the workforce, Shankar added.   

Currently, Infosys -- with over 2 lakh employees in India -- has around 2 per cent people working from office while rest are working from home.  

Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder & Chairman, Infosys, said, "We had invested in working from home as a concept for all our employees long before the pandemic. When the pandemic struck, it was very easy for Infosys relatively, to transition its 2,40,000 employees in 40 countries to work from home."

Nilekani added that the investment in technology, network and cybersecurity framework were the enabling factors to facilitate work from home.  

The government has already allowed IT companies to work from anywhere. Mumbai-headquartered Tata Consultancy Services has also announced that 75 per cent of the company's permanent staff will work from home by 2025.

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