All employees at the associate level and below at Cognizant will be receiving 25% of their base salary as an additional payment to their current paycheck for the month of April. The IT services giant said that this will be reviewed monthly, and the additional payment will be processed along with April’s salary for employees in India and the Philippines. Just like India’s national lockdown, the Philippines is in a state of national emergency to contain the spread of coronavirus.
This is two-thirds of the company’s employees. In an internal email, the company said that COVID-19 was one of the biggest shocks to the world in decades, and the company too was experiencing its effects on both the demand as well as fulfilment sides.
“I appreciate that many of you are working extremely long days, weekends included. Some of you have given over virtually all of your personal time to helping clients and colleagues. You are doing whatever is needed to serve our clients and co-create solutions with them and our partners,” CEO Brian Humpries said in the email.
Stating that it is unlikely anyone could have prepared fully for the COVID-19 scenario, the teams have risen to the challenge.
He stated that they quickly sought work from home for employees for their health, and also to maintain continuity of service and safeguarding client data.
“...in the past few weeks we have enabled the majority of our offshore delivery teams to work from home by provisioning new laptops and encrypting desktops and moving them to your homes, as well as by enabling the use of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), providing additional bandwidth connectivity and air cards—all with the appropriate client permissions and security protocols. While working from home may amount to a significant shift in behavior for many of you, please continue to keep up the essential work you do for our clients,” the email said.
Earlier this month, Reliance also said that employees who earn less than Rs 30,000 would receive their salaries twice in a month.