Few employees globally tested positive for COVID-19, undertaken contact tracing steps: Infosys

Infosys on Monday said its few employees globally have tested positive for COVID-19, and it has undertaken contact tracing measures to identify colleagues, who interacted with them, in order to ensure they are appropriately quarantined.

However, the Bengaluru-based company - which announced its Q4 and FY20 earnings on Monday - said it will get employees back on premises in a staggered manner while following all protocols to ensure safety of staff amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"A few Infosys employees across the world have tested positive for COVID-19. The company is in touch with them and their families to provide active and continuous support to help them through the rest and recovery," Infosys said.

The company added that it has undertaken contact tracing measures to identify colleagues, if any, who have interacted with them and ensuring that they are appropriately quarantined.

With lockdowns effective in several parts of the world, Infosys said 93 per cent of its global workforce is now working from home and the company has a strong focus on ensuring security of client data.

Infosys is approaching plans in the weeks ahead "with cautious optimism", while carefully monitoring advisories and adapting tactics to policies and injunctions in the cities, states and countries that it operates in.

"Our plan is to come back in a gradual manner, we are not in hurry to come back aggressively. In phase one, less than 5 per cent of employees will come back to work for 3-4 weeks. In the next 4-8 weeks, maybe it will become 15-20 per cent in a gradual manner. We will follow very high standards of safety, temperature check and social distancing," Infosys COO Pravin Rao said.

He added that the company - which has over 2.4 lakh employees globally - is also exploring if it can set up testing facility.

Infosys said it will honour the job offers it has extended to the markets, in order to enhance the skill-sets it can bring to recovery-focused client environments. However, promotions and salary hikes have been put on hold.

Rao asserted that the company is not looking at any COVID-19-related layoffs "at this stage". He also noted that Infosys will make 35,000 job offers in FY21.

Infosys CFO Nilanjan Roy said in the near term, there will be a demand-supply mismatch "because we were geared for high volume in the first quarter".

"We have to ensure that the utilisation rates go up," he added.