An American multinational information technology services, Cognizant is not mandating its employees to return to the office any time soon.
“We did express that social capital is important as we have freshers in the mix who will need hand-holding. It won’t be impactful if the managers don’t come to work. We will have a more natural progression of return-to-work,” Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S said during an earnings call on Thursday.
“Our flexible return to work is actually helping us get in more women to work as opposed to affecting them,” CEO Ravi Kumar added.
“We maintained our commercial momentum, with strong bookings growth of 17% year over year, including roughly a third of in-quarter bookings from large deals,” Ravi Kumar S added.
“We also saw a return to sequential revenue growth, and our initial investment in the Cognizant Neuro AI platform has helped drive more than 100 early engagements as clients embrace generative AI”, Ravi Kumar S said.
Ravi Kumar S further said, “The continued reduction in our voluntary attrition, improved employee engagement, and higher customer satisfaction scores reflect the interdependence of our client and employee experience.”
The Total headcount at Cognizant at the end of the second quarter was 345,600, a decrease of 5,900 from Q1 2023 and an increase of 4,300 from Q2 2022.
Tech major companies including TCS, Accenture, IBM, Google, and Infosys, etc are calling their employees back to the office and trying to have at least employees work 2-3 days from the office.
Recently, Tech giant Google has revised its hybrid work policy, making it mandatory for employees to be in the office for at least three days a week. Additionally, the company will also be including the “three days per week” in the performance reviews.
Of late, Infosys has inaugurated a state-of-the-art facility in Yelahanka, Bengaluru. This new office aims to encourage employees to work in a hybrid mode.
Earlier, Infosys also established offices in tier II cities like Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore. The new offices aim to encourage employees to work in a hybrid mode and provide them with greater flexibility while bringing them closer to their residences.
In a communication to employees, Infosys said, “We are excited to announce the launch of our new North Gate facility in north Bengaluru to further promote flexibility and encourage you to work in hybrid mode and closer to your home.”
With Return to Office initiative is picking pace TCS 55% of the workforce already in office thrice a week.
In a Nasscom Technology and Leadership Summit 2023, Wipro chairman Rishad Premji said that he wants employees to return to workplaces and get over the work-from-home mindset. Premji also believes that hybrid work is the future for most workplaces.
Recently, IT and consulting giant, Accenture has also instructed the Team Leaders and Managers to ensure their respective team members are working from their base locations by August 31, 2023.
Recently IBM CEO Arvind Krishna warns employees, said return to office or lose career opportunities. Remote work can hurt the career prospects of employees, especially in managerial roles.
If you aspire to lead roles would face difficulties in getting promoted, especially to managerial positions, he added.
He said, “Remote work is more suitable for certain roles that require individual work. In the short term, you probably can be equally productive, but your career does suffer.”
“Moving from there to another role is probably less likely because nobody’s observing them in another context. It will be tougher. Not impossible, but probably a lot tougher”, he added.
Persistent Systems also opened smaller offices to lure its employees back to office culture. The firm already has big facilities in various cities but to make it convenient for employees and reduce their travel time, Persistent Systems opens small offices in Pune and Bengaluru accommodating 200 employees.