A hot potato: We've seen companies use plenty of underhand, cruel, and legally questionable ways of forcing workers back into the office. Indian multinational IT consulting firm HCL Technologies has implemented what sounds like a new one: telling its workers to come back in at least three days per week or lose vacation days.
India's Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) union told The Register that HCL's India-based workers are being told they must come into the office three days per week and at least 12 days per month.
For every day that an employee is absent from the office, India's third-largest software exporter will remove a day of eligible annual leave.
HCL employees who have worked for the company for less than three years are eligible for 18 days of annual leave and one day of personal leave. Those who have been employed by the firm for more than three years are given 20 days of annual leave and two personal days.
What's especially worrying for the workers is that once all their leave days are used up, their pay could be reduced for not coming in.
NITES says the policy is illegal under Indian labor laws, especially the Shops and Establishments Act. It added that any changes to the leave policy should be made in consultation with the employees and should not lead to undue hardship.
"In the post-pandemic era, flexible working arrangements have become the norm, and imposing such rigid requirements is a step backward," NITES said.
It was only four months ago when HCL employees were called back into the office. Those who were part of its Digital Foundation Services (DFS) were told in February that failing to follow the mandate would result in a pay cut.
An HCL Technologies spokesperson said, "Our hybrid work policy provides flexibility where people in middle and senior level management follow any three days a week work from office arrangement which supports collaboration."
"All other employees follow the working arrangements as necessary to meet the client commitments and these are planned by the respective managers."
Another Indian IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is doing something similar, linking office attendance to performance bonuses. HCL says it won't go down this path, though its bonuses are already said to be pretty insignificant and not applicable to everyone.
It's not just India where workers are essentially being blackmailed into returning to the office with legally questionable threats. It was reported earlier this year that Dell will not allow full-time remote workers to apply for promotions or new roles at the company. Despite the lack of career advancement, nearly half of Dell's workers have opted to stay fully remote, which really says something about how much people hate offices.
This is all still better than what companies like Amazon do to employees who don't comply with RTO mandates: fire them.
IT firm's RTO ultimatum: get back in the office or lose your vacation days
