Infosys employees will now be required to be in the office 3 days a week: Report

Infosys employees will now be required to work from the office at least three days a week, as per an Economic Times report. This mandatory directive comes after repeated calls from management to restore regular office routines saw low compliance, it added.

"Please start coming to the office at least 3 days a week. It will become mandatory very shortly," an email from top management of the Bengaluru-based company stated, as per the paper.

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Infosys did not respond to queries, it added.

Return to Office Expected

Expressing dissatisfaction with the modest response to return-to-office appeals, the email emphasised that the three-year work-from-home arrangement post-Covid was sufficient. It further clarified that except for medical reasons, employees are expected to resume regular office attendance.

A source told the paper that the management has voiced discontent with the company's delivery units (DUs) going underutilised, prompting a call for immediate attendance at campuses housing offshore development centres (ODCs) for clients. They are however open to considering health-related requests from employees on a case-by-case basis, the source added.

Also Read: Narayana Murthy's 70-hour work week advice reaches Parliament, Govt tells MPs…

Besides the mandatory attendance issue, Infosys in another email announced the reinstatement of charges for bus services, set at ₹150 per day with a monthly cap of ₹1,500, effective from January 3, next year. Similarly, health club facilities will incur a daily charge of ₹100, capped at ₹700 per month, starting January 1, 2024.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, eligible Infosys employees could work from home for nine days each month. This new directive, if implemented, will revive the attendance system prevalent before the pandemic-induced lockdown in early 2020.

Narayana Murthy on work hours

Earlier in October, Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy expressed concerns about India's work productivity, noting that it was one of the lowest in the world. He said that youngsters should work for a minimum of 70 hours per week if the country wanted to compete with emerging economies.

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"Somehow our youth has the habit of taking not-so-desirable habits from the West, and then… not helping the country. India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government at some level, because we have been reading I don't know the truth of it, unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking this decision, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress. So therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, this is my country, I’d like to work 70 hours a week," Narayana Murthy said.

The comment proved controversial, igniting widespread debate on social media. Then a few days later, Microsoft founder Bill Gates responded to a similar question with an opposite worldview, triggering a further round of social media hubbub. The US billionaire argued that "job is not everything" and backed a 3-day work week.

In an episode of Trevor Noah’s “What Now?", Gates said that AI won’t replace humans but will free up labour. “The purpose of life is not just to do jobs. So if you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week or something, that's probably OK," Gates added.