IBM India has moved 99 per cent of its workforce to a work-from-home mode. In a LinkedIn post, Sandip Patel, MD, IBM India, mentions that the concept of work from home has been a reality at IBM for decades. The only difference now is that they have moved up the number of remote workers for their offices across the globe.
The remaining one per cent of employees are engaged in critical assignments and the Company has assured they are taking every possible measure to ensure their safety.
While verticals across the organisation have come together to make this a reality, the technology major had to make some shifts in its way of working with help from the Central and state governments, as well as the local authorities.
The first challenge was to scale up its infrastructure to meet the high demand of online traffic. The second challenge was more cultural in nature, and involved enabling the employees to work remotely. Workers were guided on the nuances of remote working, of facilitating team work and accessing business-critical solutions from home.
Patel acknowledges the support from the authorities, which made the ‘lift and shift’ exercise possible for all employees. Another critical factor, which all IT and ITes companies have to go through, is getting the approval of the clients to take work home. Data privacy and security is a major barrier in enabling IT employees to work on client solutions from a home network. Patel thanked IBM’s clients for facilitating approvals without much hurdle, making for a smooth process.
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