COVID-19: Wipro leaders to return to office from tomorrow after 18 months

IT services firm Wipro will reopen the office for its leaders from Monday after a gap of 18 months as India was hit by COVID-19. The office will open twice a week and COVID-19 protocols to be strictly followed.

"After 18 long months, our leaders at Wipro are coming back to the office starting tomorrow (twice a week). All fully vaccinated, all ready to go - safely and socially distanced! We will watch this closely," said Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji.

He also shared a video about the COVID-19-related safety protocols, including temperature checks and QR code scans, that have been put in place at the Wipro office. Premji, during the company's 75th annual general meeting on July 14, had said about 55 percent of its employees in India have been vaccinated. Wipro has about 2 lakh employees currently.

In the company's annual report, Premji had stated that the company had triggered its business continuity plans to quickly enable remote working as the pandemic broke out, and less than three percent of its global workforce was working from office. "We have settled well into this new way of working and have continued to make our customers successful. We enjoy their confidence, and I have no doubt that a hybrid model may well be how we work in the future," he had said.

Industry watchers believe that a hybrid model of work bringing in staff into office for a few days a week while allowing them to work remotely on other days will have huge comparative advantage. It will pave the way for a more inclusive workforce enabling job creation in tier-III and -IV locations and greater participation of women in the workforce as they will have flexibility to work from home, according to them.