[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by raksrules

many employees in my organization do not have one and cannot do WFH. I am not sure how WFH can be implemented for those.

Some companies are arranging to deliver desktops of the employees who do not have laptops to their homes.

But sadly, some of the worlds largest companies (not just in IT) that have IT operations in Bangalore are yet to implement WFH and this is surprising. This is despite the government order to the contrary.

[raksrules]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Some companies are arranging to deliver desktops of the employees who do not have laptops to their homes.

But sadly, some of the worlds largest companies (not just in IT) that have IT operations in Bangalore are yet to implement WFH and this is surprising. This is despite the government order to the contrary.

I have never worked on desktop in my current org so not sure but I am guessing the desktops won't have company VPN software. I actually would want every employee to have laptops only and sometimes I don't understand why are IT companies spending on desktops.

[drmohitg]

Guys I am not sure if this has already been posted before but I felt the need to make everyone aware on the forum.

The government and few doctors on media shows have been saying that face masks are not of any use in healthy people and should be only worn by patients. Nothing can be more wrong than that. They may have their reasons for making this claim due to panic buying or simple to avoid the crisis of people getting agitated due to shortage of these masks.

What is important to know is that one of the biggest routes of transmission for the virus is via droplet infection. This means that whenever a patient or a carrier sneezes/coughs, he releases millions of virus particles into the air and people surrounding him (they say a safe distance is 2meters which is not possible in real life) will inhale these particles through their noses and mouth. A mask prevents this by filtering them out. So please take all the precautions including wearing a mask when going out regardless of if you have the infection or not.

[luvDriving]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Some companies are arranging to deliver desktops of the employees who do not have laptops to their homes.

My wife's company has done this. They have arranged for WFH desktops for those people who do not have assigned laptops. The managers are now tasked with ensuring that people are indeed W from H

Originally Posted by drmohitg

They may have their reasons for making this claim due to panic buying or simple to avoid the crisis of people getting agitated due to shortage of these masks.

I saw this discussion on television wherein a panel of doctors were answering questions regarding Coronavirus. They suggested that masks were to be worn only by medical personnel and not by the ordinary citizen.

The reasons they gave were that the mask will not filter out any germs but will act as a barrier to any droplets from spreading. The cons are that the person will constantly touch the mask to adjust it and thus touch his/her face which is to be avoided. Another reason is that unless washed in boiling water, the mask cannot be reused by simply washing it in soap water which many people are doing currently.

Also, discarded used masks (rather carelessly discarded masks) pose a greater risk of spreading the virus. The doctors also said that this virus spreads from a hard surface to soft surface. e.g. from a table or door knob to hand, hand to face and face to eye.

[pankajn1702]

Originally Posted by GTO

How are you guys handling this at your office? Did you guys complain to someone senior or the HR? Or just take sick leave?

My organisation has been quite slow in decision making. May be because we are approx 4.5 Lakh employees worldwide and the nature of work is also quite diverse. We are still not told about what needs to happen - whether to report to work everyday as usual or to WFH.

But we have a meeting later in the evening today, hopefully, they get their decisions made and allow us to work from home.

Even our company has lot of Desktop users. I am hearing they might allow desktop users to take the desktops and then work from home.

[KL01toKA03]

Originally Posted by pankajn1702

My organisation has been quite slow in decision making.
Even our company has lot of Desktop users. I am hearing they might allow desktop users to take the desktops and then work from home.

I think in many organizations which do not have a work from home option, setting it up immediately might be very difficult. VPNs might be required to access internal portals required for work. Even if VPNs were available, they would suddenly have to deal with a case of almost everyone trying to connect simultaneously.

[srishiva]

I think all these days companies did not care for enabling work from home option. Now it will be difficult to setup everything especially for people using desktops at work. Indian services companies were slack in looking into this. I know there are some companies which used visit your home and see if you have inverter and what your setup looks like :(

I have always had work from home option which I used to avoid traffic. Being a networking giant, there is no shortcoming in capacity and we are advised to work from home until end of this month.

[BoneCollector]

I was surprised today morning after some people visited my clinic asking for an address. The house in question is just across my home/ clinic. On enquiring what they had come for, they said they're tracking people who have traveled abroad and returned last week. My neighbor's son has a travel history to Indonesia with his family and he returned last Saturday. They met them and have asked them to stay at home. A second group of people will come for necessary checkup and tests if required. This is in a Tier 3 city of Bihar. And this does make me feel that the government is indeed working.


There are many companies in Gurgaon that have asked their employees to work from home. Although I see that the big 4 have not yet issued anything on this front. A cousin of mine has travelled from Pune to Indore for work.


Another thing that I feel should be done and have even got people in my family, friends and relatives to do is be clean shaven. Having a beard has a few disadvantages, mainly the mask not fitting properly or not cleaning the face properly due to facial hair. A beard is after all something that can be grown again. Think again guys. Get rid of your beard.

Source.

Originally Posted by drmohitg

What is important to know is that one of the biggest routes of transmission for the virus is via droplet infection. This means that whenever a patient or a carrier sneezes/coughs, he releases millions of virus particles into the air and people surrounding him (they say a safe distance is 2meters which is not possible in real life) will inhale these particles through their noses and mouth. A mask prevents this by filtering them out. So please take all the precautions including wearing a mask when going out regardless of if you have the infection or not.

True that. Put on a mask. It's required.

On a side note, stay at home please.

[iTNerd]

We had stock up our essential supplies such as dry fruits, flour, rice, soaps, tissues, edible oils etc. seeing the worldwide trend of panic stocking and hoarding of supplies from stores and supermarkets. You never know when things might get out of control and lock down begins here.

[Flanker99]

Hello all, this was posted in LiveMint sometime back.

I too am part of an organization that has been dithering over making a formal announcement. I hope this statement from the BMC chief helps in expediting things.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by iTNerd

We had stock up our essential supplies such as dry fruits, flour, rice, soaps, tissues, edible oils etc. seeing the worldwide trend of panic stocking and hoarding of supplies from stores and supermarkets. You never know when things might get out of control and lock down begins here.

Yup, we generally buy groceries every fortnight. But stocked up for a month on Saturday.

[iamahunter]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Some companies are arranging to deliver desktops of the employees who do not have laptops to their homes.

But sadly, some of the worlds largest companies (not just in IT) that have IT operations in Bangalore are yet to implement WFH and this is surprising. This is despite the government order to the contrary.

The government has said WFH "if possible" and that’s essentially making a vast difference. Nonetheless, companies are working towards providing employees a way to work from home.

My company has a BCP plan (designed last week and only a plan on paper, none tried or tested) in place which would ask the employees to carry home their desktops, but with service industry it all boils down to the "client permissions". Which we do not have YET!

Originally Posted by WhiteFang

Out of inquisitiveness, where exactly in Mumbai is your office?.

Airoli, Navi Mumbai.
The building has been completely sanitized and managers are now encouraging "resources" to come to office. "It’s the safest building to work from now" - they say.

Originally Posted by srishiva

I think all these days companies did not care for enabling work from home option. Now it will be difficult to setup everything especially for people using desktops at work. Indian services companies were slack in looking into this

This is precisely the problem.

None of the industries have BCP (Business Continuity Plan) in case of an epidemic/pandemic. Most the BCP revolves around the "data" and servers it’s stored on. The condition that has come on to us today simply exposes how devaluated an Indian Employee is.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Flanker99

I too am part of an organization that has been dithering over making a formal announcement. I hope this helps in expediting things.

Originally Posted by iamahunter

The building has been completely sanitized and managers are now encouraging "resources" to come to office. "It’s the safest building to work from now" - they say.

Really odd that any company would adopt this stance today, especially if the job really doesn't require employees to be physically present in the office. I think the government is doing the correct thing, trying to prevent panic, framing guidelines in the form of recommendations and giving companies the chance to do the right thing. Pity that the idiotic management of some companies still needs to wait till a government enforcement. Then they will cry about "government regulations".

[MasterChief]

Hello people, came across an excellent article on a Q & A session with Peter Piot, Director of London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (attached). It will answer some of the queries/doubts we all are having regarding the novel Coronavirus. It provides some interesting information as well like: "Viruses are everywhere. It’s amazing to realize that if you add them all up, all the viruses in the world weigh more than all the living matter in the world – including all of the plants, animals and bacteria. 10% of the human genome is derived from virus DNA. The Earth truly is a “virus planet!”

Q&A with Peter Piot.pdf

[Vid6639]

Most of our clients are work from home. We were told to implement it from today.

I've got most of my staff working from home but those who have no broadband where they stay or in PG, they have been asked to come. Airtel dongles are in short supply and network is more loaded with data so working using hotspot is not that easy.

If they have broadband at home I have told WFH. If not then have to figure out till then come to office but remain socially distant from colleagues.