Toyota relocates employees to low-cost rental offices as coronavirus hits business

Automaker Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) is relocating its marketing teams to low-rental office facilities including co-working spaces. Recently, the company moved out of the UB City towers on Vittal Mallya road in Bengaluru.

Toyota's 6,200 employees had been working at UB City for about 14 years. It initially rented two floors of 25,000 sq ft each but has vacated one of the floors a few years ago.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor vice-chairman Shekhar Vishwanathan said that the company's strategy to relocate employees into less exorbitant rental spaces would help save a few crores in rentals a year, according to The Economic Times.

Apart from Bengaluru, Toyota would also be giving up expensive working space in Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata, Vishwanathan added. He said the company will relocate its marketing team to smaller offices and deploy them on fields. Toyota Kirloskar's human resource, legal, and finance department will be working from the 432-acre production facility at the Bidadi Industrial Area, 40-km of Bengaluru after relaxations in coronavirus restrictions.

In May, Toyota Kirloskar Motor had reported a 86.49 per cent decline in domestic vehicle sales to 1,639 units. The company had posted sales of 12,138 units in May 2019.

Toyota Kirloskar, which was among the first to switch to making BS-VI vehicles ahead of the government-mandated deadline, has been hit hard by the 43 er cent GST and cess on hybrid cars.

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