One million IT staff will continue work-from-home post-lockdown: Kris Gopalakrishnan

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Several million it employees are expected to continue to work from home even following the coronavirus-inflicted lockdown situation returns to normalcy, says IT industry veteran Senapathy (Kris) Gopalakrishnan.

The former President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said the IT services industry has actually were able to transition people to home based through the ‘stay-at-home’ period.

“And that was not a trivial task. A significant number of people who've to be supported with technology infrastructure to home based; business processes should be changed, with client permission,” the co-founder of IT services firm Infosys Ltd told P T I.

“Now I am told that 90 to 95 % of people in lots of of the larger (IT) organisations will work out of home.  And that transition has been smooth and done very, rapidly. They have figured that out and I think this will now become part and parcel of the business enterprise continuity processing, planning later on,” Gopalakrishnan said. 

The Chairman of early stage startup accelerator and venture fund, Axilor Ventures, also said that lots of the smaller Indian startups have discovered that they are as effective training of home and so are now wondering if they require permanent work place at all.

“We (India's IT services companies) aren't going back to business as usual,” he said, adding, businesses would execute a rethink on any office space they would require and “how we have to deliver services later on.

Gopalakrishnan believes at least 20-30 % of IT employees would continue steadily to work from home even following the lockdown is lifted and the problem returns to normalcy.  That makes up about about 1.2 million people, he said noting that four million professionals work in India's IT-Business Process Outsourcing sector as per industry body NASSCOM figures.

“Some companies will be many more aggressive (more people will work from your home), the smaller the firms lot more aggressive they'll be, so that they are able to save significantly regarding rental costs.”

The former CEO and Managing Director of Infosys said he will not see job losses in the IT sector but “I don't see recruitment happening.”

He indicated that earnings cuts would happen in the IT sector.

“IT sector will not see large-scale layoffs, they have the ability to hold on to their employees however they don't recruit, they stop recruiting because growth is not there,” he said.  He said lot of men and women estimate that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic will be felt for 12 to 1 . 5 years which ensures that recruitment will be “nil or slow” for the main one and half years.

“That’s likely to hurt persons who passed out this year and could be next year.”

“Yes, that’s one way you can actually avoid layoffs,” he said on possible wage cuts. “Everybody takes a small salary cut. When the whole economy is in decline, we are going to see zero growth or muted GDP growth this season; so, which will have effect on compensation and recruitment.”

“Typically, previously what has happened (in the IT industry) reaches the lower levels there is absolutely no salary cuts, as we rise it'll be five per cent, ten %, and at the very top it could be 20-25 %, Gopalakrishnan said when asked about the possible selection of earnings cuts in the IT sector.
Source: https://www.deccanchronicle.com

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