Infosys ends work from home for some employees, asks them to work from office 5 days a week

By Divya BhatiThe advent of the Covid-19 pandemic changed the structure of corporate working. It introduced the idea of Work-from-home (WFH) and made it easier for employees to connect and work from anywhere. But it seems like companies are not likely to continue it anymore. Several tech companies, including Google, have decided to end their WFH policy, and more recently, the Indian IT giant Infosys announced a strict mandate for certain employees to return to the office.

According to a report by TOI, Infosys, the Indian multinational information technology company, has instructed its employees in the United States and Canada to return to the office and resume working. The company has implemented a policy and communicated to its employees that they must take special permission if they desire to work remotely.

In addition, the company has issued a warning to its employees regarding possible disciplinary measures if anyone fails to adhere to the new work policy concerning remote work. Infosys has announced the new mandate for its workforce in the United States and Canada, where it employs over 30,000 individuals. It is worth noting that this new working policy does not apply to its offices in India. However, last year, the company introduced a three-phase plan in India to gradually transition employees back to working in the office.

Reportedly, Infosys implemented a three-stage plan for employees to gradually return to the office. In the first phase, employees were allowed to come to the office twice a week as per their convenience. The second phase provided the option for employees to either relocate to a different branch office or request a transfer. Finally, Infosys aimed to develop a hybrid-work policy based on feedback from the previous stages.

Talking about the potential return of employees to the office, Krishnamurthy Shankar, Executive Vice President and Group Head of HR Development said, “It will be exciting to see how our teams will explore their own return to office plans by creatively and pragmatically blending project and business imperatives along with collective working convenience.”

Significantly, in February, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy said that youngsters should also not insist on working from home, and added ethics and laziness need to be given special focus. “My fervent desire and humble desire to youngsters is please don’t fall into this trap of I will moonlight, I will do work from home, I will come to office three days in a week,” he said.