46% businesses in India fear negative COVID-19 impact for 1 year

Amid the growing concern over COVID-19, 57 per cent of organisations in India expect a moderate to large negative impact on their business in the next six months, while 46 per cent expect this to last over a 12-month period, a survey revealed on Tuesday.

About 19 per cent of the respondents said they expect such an adverse impact to last over a two-year period, according to the survey by Willis Towers Watson, a leading advisory, broking and solutions company.

Only 5 per cent of organisations expect a positive business impact within the next 12 to 24 months, said the “COVID-19 India Readiness Survey”.

“The tough economic conditions and anticipated business impact could drive organisations to consider workforce optimisation,” Rohit Jain, Head of India, Willis Towers Watson, said in a statement.

“Employers should take an emphatic and considerate approach and evaluate options such as staff redeployment, reduced working hours/days, long service leave, sabbatical, furlough, hiring freeze and voluntary pay cuts, before any serious consideration of a workforce reduction,” Jain added.

The survey conducted from March 20-31 involved 103 organisations in India.

Data was collected from nearly 417,000 employees working across sectors such as financial services, healthcare, IT & telecom, manufacturing, public sector & education and wholesale & retail, with the survey results presented in an aggregate approach.

The results showed that 42 per cent of respondents have not taken a decision on salary increment budgets for this year, while 33 per cent indicated that performance appraisals and bonus pay-outs will happen as planned.

Furthermore, 77 per cent said that there will be no reduction in salaries and 53 per cent responded that there have been no adjustments to the sales incentive pay-outs.

Almost one in three respondents anticipate that their 2020 annual bonus for executives and employees will be impacted, while 17 per cent expect an impact on their 2020 long term incentive plans, the survey revealed.

Over 80 per cent of organisations plan to review their work-from-home policy, and 46 per cent indicated that they would reimburse employees the expenses incurred for setting up their home internet for work purposes, showed the results.

“The rate at which corporates and employees have adopted technology in the last couple of weeks is truly remarkable. This combined with large numbers of employees working remotely, also leaves organisations vulnerable to cyber-attacks,” said Jain.

“It is, therefore, important for organisations to also invest in employee awareness and education while reviewing cyber insurance adequacy,” he added.-IANS News