Companies across India are adopting cautious measures to ensure employee safety during the monsoon season, particularly following a weekend of heavy rainfall that resulted in multiple casualties.
Prominent organizations including Deloitte, KPMG, Airtel, Coca-Cola, Wipro, UpGrad, and ABB are contemplating offering work-from-home (WFH) or flexible work arrangements to their employees in anticipation of extreme weather conditions in the coming days, according to executives interviewed by ET.
Numerous companies, particularly in the services and manufacturing sectors, have already implemented hybrid work models, enabling them to swiftly transition to remote work if necessary.
Deepti Sagar, Chief People and Experience Officer at Deloitte India, highlighted the benefits of their hybrid approach: “Since we are continuing with hybrid, our people exercise the flexibility needed during the monsoon and beyond. We specifically issue advisories to professionals to work from home and defer travel plans to locations facing inclement weather, like recently we have done for Delhi-NCR.”
In response to heavy rain alerts, many companies in the Delhi-National Capital Region instructed their employees to work from home on Monday.
Telecom giant Bharti Airtel issued an advisory encouraging WFH due to the inclement weather. However, the first half of the day remained relatively dry in the Delhi-NCR region.
Airtel maintains a flexible work policy that allows employees to opt for WFH. “With recent incessant rains in Delhi-NCR and subsequent government advisories, our employees have been instructed to work remotely and can opt for work from home during heavy rains,” stated an Airtel spokesperson.
Wipro, an IT services firm, offers its employees the flexibility to work from home, according to their spokesperson. “Business continuity plans have been invoked, and there has been no disruption to business. We are closely monitoring the situation.”
To ensure employee safety, ABB India has requested its employees in North India to assess the on-ground situation before deciding whether to commute. “Owing to monsoons, we have issued a pan-India safety advisory requesting employees to be vigilant of the on-ground situation before planning any travel to their office or customer premises,” explained Raman Kumar Singh, Chief HR Officer at ABB India.
UpGrad is granting its employees the flexibility to choose whether to work from home based on weather conditions. Mayank Kumar, Co-founder of the edtech firm, stated, “Assessing IMD’s recent notification on heavy to very heavy rainfall that is likely to impact parts of the country in the next few days, we are also monitoring weather conditions across other PAN India locations and will implement proactive measures to ensure our employees’ security, as required.”
Vedantu, which has offices solely in Bengaluru while employees in other regions work remotely, is prepared to prioritize employee safety should the rains affect Bangalore. “Should the rains impact Bangalore, we are willing to prioritize the safety of our employees and will promptly enable remote work for our team members, ensuring their well-being,” emphasized Simriti Goel, Head of HR at Vedantu.
