With the COVID-19 inoculation drive beginning across the country, HCL Tech is currently working with industry bodies to see how quickly its 1.59 lakh employees and their families can get vaccinated, said VV Apparao, Chief Human Resources Officer.
In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Apparao said: “Our intent is that we want our employees and our families to be taken care of. But we are still waiting for guidelines from the government on how this can be taken up.”
The vaccination drive began on January 16, 2021 and so far close to 16 lakh have been inoculated. Healthcare professionals will be get vaccine shots in the first phase followed by frontline workers such as armed forces and municipal workers. The third phase will include those who are 50 years or above and those with comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes.
The company is working with IT industry body NASSCOM and the Confederation of Indian Industry on getting its employees vaccinated. Apparao explained that so far there is not much clarity on how companies can vaccinate their employees. For instance, it is not clear yet if the vaccine will be made available in the retail market, or if the producers can talk to companies and provide the vaccines required.
The company is also trying through various sources such as directly contacting vaccine producers and reaching out to implementation partners, some of whom are getting themselves ready for the vaccine rollout.
“All those things we are doing. But in the absence of any policy clarity nobody is able to commit anything,” Apparao pointed out.
What other companies are saying
Vaccination plans are in the works at other IT companies as well, and they are working with associations and government agencies for the same. This is important given that the Indian IT industry employs about 45 lakh people. The top four IT companies, TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech, employ more than 10 lakh people.
Nitin Rakesh, CEO, Mphasis, a mid-tier IT firm, said: “We are talking to various authorities and associations.”
Rakesh explained that each jurisdiction has a different policy. For instance, the US model is different from the one in India. Even within the US, each State has a different model. So, the company is working with industry bodies and government agencies for the same.
In a recent interview with Moneycontrol, V Ramakrishnan, CFO, TCS, said: “We are working on that…This is an evolving situation. Right now we don’t have a firm plan but this is something that is very important.”
Jatin Dalal, CFO, Wipro, said during an interaction on January 13 that “it is too early to call out a strategy around it. We certainly are studying this.”
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