India Inc retunes offices for life post Covid-19 lockdown

April 23, 2020: The ministry of home affairs has circulated new guidelines for work from office (WFO), making social distancing mandatory in workspaces. Businesses prepare to work with the new normal. India Inc will need to rearrange most of its office spaces once work resumes after the lockdown, with large-scale behavioural and physical space alterations on cards. Businesses are set to redefine seating arrangements in offices to comply with social distancing, implement shift-based work, go virtual with meetings, upgrade cleaning mechanism with frequent sanitisation and provision of hand sanitisers, removal of biometric. A lot of companies are integrating new norms with better employee safety as their focus. Optimising the use of office space is no longer the mandate. A roster-based system of presence, scattered meal timings, adequate space between workstations, no gatherings in common areas. Some companies are even going to the extent of not allowing external visitors inside the office premises as much as possible. Few companies is providing real-time guidance to employees as the Covid-19 situation continues to evolve in India. Only a small number of employees who perform essential services continue to be on-site at our offices. Most companies are of the view that they will call only employees working on critical projects and the rest can continue to work from home for a few more weeks in the interest of employee safety.