Coronavirus outbreak | Tough to practice work-from-home: corporates

While private companies across the city have been asked to reduce office attendance to 50 per cent the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC has decided to check compliance from Thursday However big corporates with their headquarters in Mumbai are facing difficulties in implementationThe foremost concern is that of data compromise in case all employees working from home are given access to office servers which if hacked into could leak sensitive information especially in times of the markets crashingData is the most precious commodity for any company The IT protocol is very strict for certain departments You can access important information only through office servers Workfromhome is not possible when the employees deal with the information that impacts the company stocks said a senior vicepresident of a multinational company He said their plants are working fine because they are located in remote areas where the company has ensured preventive measures and medical backupConfusion over notificationThe VP said his company knew of the notification issued by the state and BMC and the BMC on Tuesday There is no mention of a 50 per cent cap on attendance in both notifications We checked with the BMC ward office but it didnt have any information When we got to know of it through newspapers on Wednesday we issued a notification to our employees that they may stay home if they have any kind of symptoms We have left it to the employees because the authorities too have left it to us to take a call As they are now asking for compliance we will find ways to maintain a balance in all essential departments so that regular work goes on he saidmidday contacted senior employees from two other multinationals According to them one of the companies worked with 80 per cent attendance and the other at 70 per cent on Tuesday There was no acute drop in attendance on Wednesday they saidThere is no clarity on whether we will get paid if we stay home voluntarily The competition in private offices is fierce Its like tribal wars We need to be in touch with our leaders or mentors to stay relevant We must show we work And there are some who must go to the office because of technical reasons said a midlevel manager of a hygiene and personal care giantFinancial yearend struggleThe 15day window for workfromhome is very crucial for companies given that the financial year ends on March 31 and the activity preceding the deadline involves closing yearly accounts finalising the tax liabilities and paying taxes It also entails visiting consultants and government offices for clarity and finalising plans for the next fiscal year Its also the time when employees are asked to follow up to recover pending dues and billsPeople burn the midnight oil during this time every year A series of meetings happen at odd hours Its a pressure cooker situation which only teamwork can deal with said a senior finance officer who must go to the office during the viral outbreak because he holds access to important data and leads a team He said virtual meetings hardly help when the entire team needs to work together sitting across the table Times are hard but we are trying to deal with it he addedAnother employee said his seniors ndash right from the CMD to VPs of all departments are attending officesSome of them drive their cars to the office or ensure that the drivers take proper care They follow social distancing without thinking much of the people who sit at a distance of two to three feet from each other in the working bays he saidHealth min seeks CSR fundsOn Tuesday Maharashtras public health minister Rajesh Tope met with several corporate leaders to seek CSR funds and also requested them to reduce office attendanceA government statement said Yash Mahdik Lupin Manu Wadhwa Sony Pictures Vikram Tandon HSBC Bank Rajiv Mestry Cipla DR K J Kamat LampT Aditya Priyadarshn Accenture Anchal Khanna SHRM Minakshi Priyam GlaxoSmithKline Madhavi Lall Deutsche Bank Priti Chopra Aditya Birla Group Sarthak Ranade and Rakesh Sahani Johnson amp Johnson Saurabha Singh ICICI Bank B Senthilnathan Citi Bank Seema Nair Reliance Industries and Dr Mukesh Gupta LeNest were present at the meeting50Max attendance as mandated by BMCBMC yet to reduce nonessential staffTHE BMC has 1 lakh employees across the city in its 24 ward offices hospitals fire brigade engineer hub etc While it looks after essential services like health fire brigade water supply solid waste management sewerage disaster management etc it has some departments where the staff doesnt have such dutiesThe BMC should act fast for its own employees too While the decision has been taken to close biometric attendance on Sunday we still havent got a copy of the order said an employeeThe BMC has instructed corporates to reduce staff but it should also look at its own employees There are many departments like education heritage building proposals real estate etc that dont have urgent or essential work as of now said Ravi Raja leader of the oppositionWe dont have instructions to reduce employee numbers so we havent taken any action on it said Milind Sawant joint commissioner of the general administration of BMCIn a circular on Wednesday the BMC restricted entry in all its offices to outsiders The process of issuing passes has been stopped until further notice All complaints regarding essential services will be registered via telephone or email or written letters Prajakta KasaleCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates