Different Centre-state rules slow India Inc's bid to restart business

The top management of Bharti Airtel, in a town hall meeting with employees a few days ago, told them that the decision to come to office, once it reopened, was voluntary and they could continue to work from home.
 

A senior company executive said: “We have initiated a staggered opening in green zones. Subject to further guidance from governments, we plan to open the remaining offices in a staggered way from next month. Coming to office will be voluntary and all Airtel employees can continue to work from home.”
 

Indian Inc, across various sectors, is taking cautious steps to open or ramp up their workplace, even though the Central government, under Covid-19 Lockdown 4 guidelines, has now given the state government the free hand in formulating rules in permitting more employees to join work in office.

Yet states have issued varied orders. The Delhi government, in a major relaxation. has permitted everyone to go to office. But the Maharashtra government has gone to the other extreme by keeping offices closed till the end of May.
 

Leading Indian companies like Coke (there is no move to open before June), PepsiCo, Uber (waiting for directions from global headquarters), Nestle, Ceat, Gujarat Ambuja (just opened its Gurugram office with 20 per cent staff) have either kept their door shut or are permitting minimal use of the offices.
 

Nestlé India Chairman and Managing Director Suresh Narayanan said: “As the head of the family, my approach is to be extremely cautious, conservative and not to rush into it. The branch offices — in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai — will be kept shut at least for a few more weeks.” He pointed out the head office in Gurugram had been opened up with 12 people against a capacity of 600.

The Nestle India boss is happy that work from home is working fine and there is no dip in productivity.

Mumbai-based RPG Enterprises, which controls companies like tyre major Ceat Ltd, is ready with standard operating procedures (SOP) and is hopeful it can open its corporate offices in Mumbai in the first week of June. It has a staggered plan, and will initially open offices with 10-15 per cent of the staff and then slowly ramp it up to 33 per cent.

There are others in Mumbai who are readying their SOPs and hope to get the green signal from the government in June first week. Bajaj Consumer MD Sumit Malhotra says that 20-25 per cent of its staff would be allowed to come to work in the start. This will be mostly being those who are part of critical functions such as sales, marketing, supply chain and operations. This protocol will continue for the next three months.
 

Parle Products has told senior staffers above 55 years and employees with children below 10 years not to resume work once office reopens (likely in June). This will be in place at least for three months. Only 25-30 per cent of staff of Parle Products would be allowed to come to office when it resumes.

The big boys are also taking baby steps. Sources in the known say in Reliance Jio, 10-15 per cent of the employees who work in the Delhi-NCR region are now coming to office. Its customer care employees are working from home.
 

Co-working company Smartworks, which rents our seats to enterprises from IT services (which constitutes for 50 per cent of its business), BFSI, manufacturing, financial services and even hospitality is seeing a slow uptake of employees from its clients many of whom are MNCs and use their space as their regional offices in many cases. Says Neetish Sarda founder of Smartworks:

“In the beginning of lockdown at an average only 5 per cent of our client’s employees came to our facilities, then it went up to around 20-25 per cent in cities like Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai and after lockdown 4 was announced and more relaxations given, it has gone up to around 33-35 per cent in Delhi and Bengaluru and our expectation is that by June it will hit 50 per cent with employees coming on alternative days”.  Sarda says based on feedback from their diverse client’s IT firms expect that most of their staff should be on board by June end, while manufacturing players project it to be July end. The big dampener he says is transportation and that is an area which his company is trying to bridge for the clients.
 

There are some of course who are pushing faster. Samsung has about 25 per cent of its employees coming to its headquarters in Gurugram. IT firms, however, might not be in too much of hurry. Infosys continues to work with 5 per cent of its employees and is planning to make its offices operational with 15 per cent employees over next two-three months.

In IBM India, for instance, 99 per cent of its employees are working from home and that 1 per cent of the people are focused on mission critical assignments.