Come to office or forget getting offs: HCLTech links leaves to office attendance

HCLTech's hybrid work model requires 3 days in office, leaves deducted for absences.

HCLTech is linking leaves of employees with their attendance in office, it was reported as India's third-largest software exporter is aiming to push for three day work from office. This comes as companies seek to bring employees back to the campus after the Covid pandemic. At HCLTech, employees will have to be in office for three days a week and at least 12 days in a month or their leaves will be cut for each day they are absent, Moneycontrol reported citing people in the know.

Employees of HCLTech walk inside the office premises on the outskirts of Lucknow, India.(Reuters)

Earlier, the company transitioned to a hybrid work model when earlier this year it asked employees to return to office three days a week. An employee told the outlet, “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."

An HCLTech spokesperson said as per the outlet, “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."

Earlier C Vijayakumar, CEO and MD, HCLTech said that company had no such plans to “link variable compensation with bringing people to office,” unlike Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which linked its quarterly variable pay component to the employee’s attendance in office in April.

“Return to office continues to increase, and it varies from business line to business line. 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,” he said.