Covid cases have been on a steady decline in the state of Kerala. Keeping this fact in mind, the government has declared that work from home will be revoked. This decision was announced on Wednesday. But, many IT companies are actually encouraging the WFH system and will probably opt for a hybrid mode in which they will combine working from office with working from home.
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Infection rate in Kerala is rapidly falling
Kerala had 12,223 new Covid cases on Wednesday. However, the infection rate is falling rapidly from the last week of January. Only about 4.5% out of the 1,13,798 current number of people with covid have been admitted in a hospital.
State was allowing certain people to work from home
The state had previously allowed certain people to avail the work from home option. The categories of people who could avail the work from home option were: pregnant women or women with children below the age of two years, employees who have children suffering from mental or physical challenges such as cerebral palsy, cancer patients, autism, and also the severely sick.
In the third week of January, the government also decided against giving employees a seven-day special leave so they could become a primary contact.
Companies will continue with a hybrid system
A Technopark official stated that the hybrid mode is effective. Companies have said that at least 20% of their workforce is going to continue working from home even after the pandemic. It is expected that companies like Technopark, Infopark and Cyberpark will continue to create jobs in the next year. These three companies alone are expected to give jobs to 1.10 lakh people and the IT sector indirectly employs nearly 3.30 lakh people.
M.S. Shiv Shankar is the Thiruvananthapuram head of the US based IT company Agilite Group at Technopark. He said that they are going to go ahead with a more “flexible” hybrid working model. He says the reason for this is because the productivity of employees didn’t show any downturn during the pandemic and also the growth has been on the higher side. He also said that many companies are employees due to the current positive scenario.
WFH survey results
A survey about working from home was conducted and it’s findings are quite enlightening about the employees experience. In the survey, 63% males and 61% females reported that their work-life balance has improved after the work from home model had been implemented due to the pandemic. But, workers have also reported that their working hours have increased many fold.
[“source=trak”]
