HCL Tech to link new leave policy with employees’ office attendance: Report

HCL Technologies Limited is set to roll out a new leave policy that will link employees' leaves to their attendance in the office, Moneycontrol reported, quoting multiple anonymous sources aware of the matter.

India's third-largest IT major aims to roll out a three-day work-from-office policy as the company tries to bring the employees back after the global pandemic, as per the report.

Employees have to be in the office three days a week and at least 12 days a month. If they fail to come to the office, the company will deduct their leaves for each day of absence, an anonymous source told Moneycontrol. This comes five months after HCL Tech switched to a hybrid working model.

“HR has started communicating this update to some teams from this week onwards over emails and this is already effective. Once our leaves are over, this could lead to loss of pay,” the report quoted an anonymous employee of HCL Tech as saying.

HCL Tech employees who have been with the company for less than three years are eligible for 18 annual leaves and one personal leave. The employees who have been with the company for more than three years receive nearly 20 annual leaves and two personal leaves, according to the report.

“Our hybrid work policy provides flexibility where people in middle and senior level management follow any 3-days a week work from office arrangement which supports collaboration. All other employees follow the working arrangements as necessary to meet the client commitments and these are planned by the respective managers," an HCL Tech spokesperson told the news portal.

In early July, C Viyayakumar, chief executive officer and managing director of HCL Tech, said the company did not have any plans to “link variable compensation with bringing people to office,” like its rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

"Some business lines, we're able to comfortably work remotely. And for some business lines, we think getting people back to work is the right strategy,” Vijayakumar had said.

Working trend in India's IT Industry:

IT companies started to adapt to the culture of a hybrid work environment, offering the option to work from home, since the global pandemic in 2020-2021. Things changed after the working trend started to shift to working from home instead of office.

The tech companies are now aiming to boost their social capital amid the new hires joining the workforce to better collaborate on projects in hand, as per the report.

HCL Tech's move comes after TCS decided to link variable pay with the employees' attendance in April 2024. TCS expects to get a minimum of 85 per cent of employees to work from the office.

Moneycontrol reported, quoting TCS' Chief HR Officer Milind Lakkad, that close to 70 per cent of its workforce now work from the office.