Indian IT is slowly—and nervously—returning to the office.
The $130 billion outsourcing industry was one of the least prepared to shift to a work-from-home model when the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown in March. So for the past two months, the sector, which employs over 4 million people in India, operated with a makeshift hybrid model where most of the staff worked remotely but many workers were forced to come to offices.
“No IT company is fundamentally changing. They are just making people follow some guidelines,” said Yugal Joshi, vice-president at Texas-based consultancy Everest Group. “For now, we can have buses or cafeteria run at 30% capacity, but if we truly want to sustain this, we need to remove 70% seating from buses forever.”
