Almost 93% of Indians Stressed about Returning to Office Post Lockdown: Survey
A survey undertaken by a health-tech community product, FYI, and conducted by MindMap Advance Research with 560 India Inc. entities has revealed that an overwhelming 93 percent of employees are anxious to return to office. Out of these nearly 85 percent expect their office spaces to be sanitised and employers to take responsibility to ensure a healthy and safe environment for them as they prepare to return to work post-coronavirus and lockdown. 99% would like to see a system of Corporate Health Responsibility (CHR) made mandatory for employers. The survey also showed that 81 percent of the employees would resume work only in batches, while 73 percent expect the employers to enforce work from home as an ongoing process.
Samsung India Begins ‘Work from Home’ Internship
Amid the coronavirus lockdown, Samsung India has come up with an innovative solution for its internship program. Its 36 interns have joined the Samsung workforce online and are undergoing internship without any disruption. The interns got inducted into Team Samsung virtually, given the focus on remote working and social distancing. Samsung has ensured that the interns, mostly belonging to GenZ, make the best use of the lockdown period. Samsung’s HR and IT teams worked round-the-clock to provide corporate coordinates and software solutions for the interns. All interns are required to start work on their projects immediately. To help them, Samsung India has provided each intern with a buddy, guide and mentor.
75% of TCS’ Workforce to Work from Home by 2025
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is gearing up to embrace the work-from-home model within the next five years. It will ask 75 percent of its 4.48 lakh employees globally (including 3.5 lakh in India) to work permanently from home by 2025. Amidst the lockdown, presently, an average of 20 percent of its staff is already working from home, and in the next five years, this arrangement may be made permanent. They call this the 25/25 mode, where they do not need more than 25% of their employees at their facilities to be fully productive. The crisis has provided an opportunity for India’s largest IT firm to discard its 20-year-old operating model and leapfrog into a new mode of work.
Government Plans to Merge EPFO, CMPFO
The central government is considering to merge the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO) with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), as per a report in Economic Times. The CMPFO has struggled in recent years as its payments started exceeding inflow since 2016-17, making it financially precarious. As a result, the contribution of employees and employers was increased to 14% in 2018. Currently, it pays monthly pensions of about Rs 230 crore while inflow is about Rs 280 crore. With an increase in the number of retired coal employees and a fall in the number of contributing members, the pension fund is now facing the possibility of running completely dry by 2028.
Capgemini Continues to Hire Even in COVID-19 Crisis
While many companies have hit a pause on hiring, Capgemini continues to hire. Further, Capgemini has said that it will honour all campus offers made to the college graduates this year, although their joining dates may be deferred due to delay in examinations owing to the COVID-19 crisis. Capgemini is also going ahead with increments and promotions for all junior-level employees effective 1st April. And for senior consultants and managers and above, salary increments will be effective 1 July, with increment letters being released in June. At a time when many IT firms are trying to keep the cost in check and considering options like layoffs and pay cuts, Capgemini has decided to take a different road by continuing hiring, salary hikes, and promotions.
Work from Home Job Offers for Women on the Rise Amid COVID-19 Crisis
According to a report, amid the nationwide lockdown, more and more companies are offering work-from-home (WFH) jobs for women. Particularly, metro cities including Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune saw a rise in WFH job postings for women. Although the demand for WFH jobs was always high for roles such as content writing, design, telesales, and recruitment, today the playing field has expanded to core IT roles like software developers, technical writing, SAP consultants, automation, UI/UX (user interface/experience) engineers.
99.8% Workforce in IT sector incapable of Working From Home
The lockdown imposed due to the Coronavirus has impacted the IT sector drastically. Amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown when the majority of the IT companies have asked their employees to resume their work from the safety of their homes, a study has revealed that only 0.2% workforce of the IT industry is highly productive, which means, 99.8% of people haven’t been efficient at their work while working remotely. The study was conducted by research-backed ingenious endeavour SCIKEY MindMatch. These 99.8 percent of the workforce do not have a minimum of among the qualities, including resistance to learning and exploring (95 percent), lack in practical communication skills (65 percent) and lack in planning and execution (71 percent). The study further said that 16.97% of people are challenge-driven, these people should be given tasks that challenge them and 17 percent of the employees are instruction-driven and therefore they need clear and direct instructions to work their best. More than 10,000 job-seekers in the IT sector participated in this study.
