Wipro follows LTIMindtree, links office attendance to leave

After months of futile attempts persuading reluctant employees back to office, India's third-largest technology services firm has put its foot down.

In an internal email, Bengaluru-based Wipro Ltd directed employees to attend office at least thrice a week or risk losing the day's leave, joining a pack of IT services companies enforcing work-from-office rules. Earlier this month, Mint reported that LTIMindtree has taken a similar course of action.

In the 2 September mail sent to Wipro employees, the management also asked the human resources team to disallow employee requests to work from home.

“If there are any such approvals, please cancel such approvals with immediate effect, and suggest the teams to attend office three days a week minimum. The leaves should get deducted in system for any deviation from the above said WFO policy," read the company’s mail, seen by Mint.

Mumbai-based software services company LTIMindtree linked leaves to employee attendance from 1 September. According to its work-from-office policy called Rhythm, employees who do not turn up in office for four days when they were supposed to, would lose a day’s leave.

No cap mentioned

However, while LTIMindtree capped the number of leaves that could be deducted to 1.5 days per month, the Wipro email does not mention any cap.

“The management will cancel a day of leave for every day missed in office. Simply put, if an employee is not physically present in office for the required three days a week, then all three days would be counted as leaves," a Wipro employee said on the condition of anonymity.

Mint could not independently ascertain whether the cancelled leaves would result in a deduction of salaries for the day.

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However, the latest directive is only for certain projects, and does not apply to all employees, a person aware of the matter said on the condition of anonymity. Mint could not independently ascertain how many employees would be impacted.

Last November, Mint had reported about Wipro making it mandatory for employees to attend office thrice a week. The management had said that more than half of the company’s workforce had started attending office thrice a week, and that in-person interactions were critical to the professional development of its talent.

Bid to raise productivity

The concerted push by IT services companies to bring employees back to office is an attempt to raise productivity and spot top performers ahead of the next appraisal cycle, an HR expert said.

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“These companies believe that employees will be more productive and foster a stronger company culture by working from the office. Since the beginning of the fiscal year, IT services companies have been making a concerted effort to bring employees back on-site. Now might be the opportune time to enforce a return-to-office policy. With the next appraisal cycle approaching in January, IT services companies will be better equipped to evaluate employee performance, attendance, and overall engagement," said Sunil Chemmankottil, India country manager at Adecco, a global workforce solutions company.

An email sent to Wipro remained unanswered.

Return to office

India’s largest software services companies, which collectively employ more than 1.5 million employees, have been asking their workers to return to office, either for all days of the week, or on certain days.

TCS has linked variable pay of its employees to office attendance, asking employees to work from office all five days of the week. Meanwhile, India’s second largest IT outsourcing company, Infosys Ltd, has adopted a hybrid work model. The company has asked employees to be physically present on some days while working from home for the rest.

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According to the mail seen by Mint, the Wipro management also details from the human resources department of C2 employees, which includes senior architects and program managers, who have not been attending office for three days a week.

The Bengaluru-based company reported $2.64 billion in revenue for the three months ended June 2024, which is a sequential drop of 1.1%. The company’s workforce increased by 337 to 234,391 employees as of June this year.