With nearly 93% of its 2,40,000 employees having been able to work from home within the first few weeks of the COVID crisis, IT services major Infosys said that it will focus on introducing a 'flexible work from home model' for its employees permanently.
Infosys Chief Operating Officer (COO) U B Pravin Rao told shareholders during the 39th Annual General Meeting on Saturday that the work from home model has not impacted the productivity of employees so far. Depending on the client requirements and projects, a flexible work from home option for employees will be introduced, he added.
Rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had earlier said that it is looking at 75% of its employee base(4.48 lakh) to permanently work from home by 2025.
Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani said in his address that the IT services provider has been able to tide over the global crisis triggered by the COVID pandemic. He said that much of it has been possible due to nearly 93% of its 2,40,000 employees across 46 countries working from home which was made possible within a few weeks.
“Our remote access infrastructure was expanded 10x for virtual private network bandwidth and back-end capacity scaled by 4x to support the increase in concurrent connected remote users,” Nilekani said.
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said that the IT services firm has a strong $3.6 billion balance sheet due to healthy deal signings and increase in the digital revenues. The company’s standalone revenues grew by 8.1% in FY20 to Rs 79,047 crore. 97.4% were export revenues whereas 2.6% were domestic revenues. 39% of the company’s revenues came from digital services and solutions, as per the Infosys 39th annual report.
Regarding the contentious H-1B visa ban, Parekh said the company has launched localisation components to build more resilient businesses in different geographies to navigate better with changing visa regulations.
“More than 60% of our workforce in US comprises locals,” Infosys COO Rao added. Infosys said that it has surpassed its Spring 2017 commitment to hire 10,000 American workers.