IT firms seek client waivers so staff can work from home

Indian IT companies have asked their clients for waivers to let employees on projects work from home and are testing their systems, a key requirement before they can implement any widespread measure to allow their lakhs of employees to stay home.

Business continuity plans typically allow a subset of employees to work from home, with work also getting distributed to other cities as employees travel between them. But the spread of Covid-19 to multiple metro cities could result in centres across the country shutting down, requiring broader work-from-home authorisations.

“We need the waivers because some service agreements stipulate a high level of security in the development centre. Some employees have WFH (work-from-home) authorisations,