Tata Consultancy Services tells staff to go to their rooms and stay there, even after the pandemic passes

Indian technology services giant Tata Consultancy Services will increase its use of remote working in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with pay TV channel India Live, Tata (TCS) Chief Operating officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam said: “Customers are happy and employees are happy” as all service levels have been met.

“We observe better throughput and productivity,” he added, noting “people have become a lot more collaborative.”

“Working from home in secure workspaces is going to be an integral part of our operating model,” he said.

The COO said TCS moved 415,000 staff to work from home after consulting over 1,000 clients about its plans and security arrangements.

“Once we explained the secured borderless workspace options to our clients, the approvals came and we quickly enabled remote working,” Subramaniam said.

The company’s staff helped by taking the move to remote work seriously. “The first thing we had to do was show we trust our employees unless they have proven otherwise,” he said. Staff have responded by taking security and privacy “much more seriously”, Subramaniam said.

“They understand what is important to customers and to TCS and the reputational risk.”

The company has therefore started to set working from home targets for the year 2025, with the suggestion that three quarters of staff could work remotely by that time. It’s unclear if the intention is for staff to work from home every day, but Subramaniam's interview was accompanied by footage of people sitting on beds while working on laptops. If nothing else, that'll mess with the health of TCS staff and make more time behind a desk a must.

Rival services outfit Wipro, meanwhile, has re-opened one office with strict new strict social conditioning provisions in place... ®

A Silver lining! 120 employees of @Wipro returning to office in Kochi. We are hopeful that with a careful, measured approach, the world at large will be able to limp back to normalcy, even though it is likely to be a “new normal”. https://t.co/wllLg52AvZ

— @MilanRao_ (@MilanRao_) April 27, 2020