One of the most unlikely sectors in the economy has taken in the lead in advising their employees to work from home. According to an Economic Times report, around 25,000 executives and at other levels across the automotive industry are now working from home. Of this, a large chunk, 15,000 are from Ford Motors, which has a large business services division in the country located in Chennai.
Among the other companies, the Mahindra Group has asked 7,000 of its employees from the automotive and farm divisions to work from home, while the count for Tata Motors is 3,000. Tata Motors appear to have kicked off this initiative and the others have quickly caught on.
To complete the list, you have 200 from the Volkswagen Group, 300 of Fiat Chrysler and another 1000 employees from its joint venture company with Tata Motors - Fiat India Automobile Private Limited. Renault, MG Motors and Volvo Cars India too have asked some of their employees to operate from their respective residences though the total numbers are not much.
Those still to take a call on advising their staff to work from home include Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motors, Honda Cars India, Toyota Kirloskar and Kia Motors. The first two are the market leaders in the passenger car segment.
All companies have initiated precautionary steps within their premises to make sure their employees stay safe and don’t put themselves in any risk of contamination. In the case of FCA India (Fiat Chrysler), for example, those executives who can travel to work in their own vehicles, avoiding travel by public transport have been permitted to come to office. Many of these foreign companies are wary of their employees who are travelling from other countries and have arrived in India, seeking quarantine facilities for them.
As mentioned, the idea is to safeguard employees and at the same time ensuring work carries on.