Rains no dampener to productivity at IT units

For S. Shashank, who works at a leading IT company on the Old Mahabalipuram Road, Monday dawned different from his usual working day. He went to office armed with an overnight bag to stay at the office guest house and was ferried to the office premises, which was inundated.

For many IT companies, it was business as usual with the focus on ensuring that their employees were put up at safer areas. A spokesperson for the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said that alternative accommodation was arranged for more than 250 of the company’s employees who stay at hostels and PG accommodations in the flooded areas.

“Most of these employees are not from the city and we wanted to ensure that they were put up at safer places. We did not declare a holiday, but instead gave the employees the option of working from home,” he said.

If employees needed to access the office networks, they were asked to report to the office branches nearest to them instead of travelling to the branches they worked out of.

An employee of IBM in Chennai, functioning out of the DLF complex at Porur, said that when the alert for rough weather was sounded, employees were selected from each team and more than 200 of them were sent to Bengaluru on Sunday evening in buses arranged by the company.

“The company had organised accommodation for us there and we returned to Chennai only on Thursday,” he said.

A few companies however went ahead and announced holidays on Monday and Tuesday for a section of their employees.

“We do not usually work on Saturdays, but will be working this week to compensate for the holiday,” said K. Keshav, an employee with an IT healthcare company.

For many IT companies, it was business as usual with the focus on ensuring that their employees were put up at safer areas