work home industry companies new service employees

Permanent ‘Work From Home’ for IT employees now possibleThe government on Thursday announced simplified guidelines for BusinessProcess Outsourcing (BPO) and IT-Enabled Services (ITES) players to reducetheir compliance burden for the industry and facilitate “Work From Home” and“work from anywhere”.According to the government, the new rules for Other Service Providers’(OSPs), which includes BPOs, KPOs, ITEs, call centre among others, wouldremove frequent reporting and other obligations and would create an amicableenvironment for both companies and employees.The new rules do away with registration requirement for OSPs, while the BPOindustry engaged in data-related work has been taken out of the ambit of thesaid regulations. Additionally, under the revamped guidelines, therequirements such as deposit of bank guarantees, the requirement for staticIPs, the publication of network diagram, and penal provisions have also beenremoved.Similarly, several other requirements, which prevented companies from adopting‘Work From Home‘ and ‘Work from Anywhere’ policies have also been removed.Post the announcement, PM Modi tweeted that the prowess of India’s IT sectoris recognised globally and the government is committed to doing everythingpossible to ensure a conducive environment for growth and innovation in India.“Committed to furthering ‘Ease of Doing business’ and making India a tech hub!GoI has significantly simplified Other Service Provider (OSP) guidelines ofthe Telecom Department. Compliance burdens of BPO industry will be greatlyreduced due to this,” PM Modi said.Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted, “Today@narendramodi Govt has taken a major reform initiative to liberalize theregulatory regime for “Other Service Provider”. This will boost the IT/ ITeS/BPO industry and create a friendly regime for Work from Home in India.”Nasscom termed the move as a bold reform for ITES/BPO players.“These will provide several benefits…India is a global outsourcing hub and thenew guidelines will promote outsourcing at scale, bringing in more work toIndia. With the relaxations in WFH regulations, companies will be able to tapinto talent from small towns and remote parts of the country,” Nasscom SeniorDirector and Public Policy Head Ashish Aggarwal said.Nandan Nilekani, non-executive chairman of Infosys, called Centre’s decision‘Truly a case of dramatic Ease of Business in the digital world’. He added,“The reforms of Other Service Provider regulations for BPO/BPM industry isbreath-taking in its simplicity”.Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh tweeted that the “game-changing reform”signals start of a new chapter for Indian IT and for India as a leading IT hubfor the world.In March, lakhs of employees hurriedly packed their desk and started workingfrom home as coronavirus pandemic leapt across the country. Several IT giantsin the country allowed their staff to work from home to prevent their exposureto the disease. Months have passed, and companies like TCS, Infosys and Wiprohave decided to continue Work from Home for up to 99 per cent of their staff.Another IT firm HCL is considering bringing in 20 per cent of its workforceback to office premises on a rotational basis by December-end. Tech Mahindrasaid that over one-fourth of the company’s employees are already back in theiroffices across the different company locations to date.