To minimize economic hardships brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, WSO2 commits to continue paying daily workers regular wages as the company’s work-from-home policies come into effect
With two new COVID-19 cases being reported in Sri Lanka, the first local infections reported over the past two days, a growing number of employees could soon be advised to change their routine, or just stay at home.
While many employees, especially those in tech firms similar to WSO2, could do their jobs away from offices, large companies also have daily support staff, who do everything possible from cooking to delivering meals to driving shuttles and cleaning offices. They could not do their jobs remotely, while in many instances, they are employed by other businesses that are too small to continue paying them wages. These low-income workers who often live from paycheck to paycheck, may not possess the financial savings needed to buy food in advance or stock up in the event of an emergency.
“We have been inspired by global tech industry leaders and we wish to do the right thing for the support of our family. We recognize the difficulties in lost hours and work could mean for them,” WSO2’s CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana said. “As a result, we have decided that we would continue to pay all our support workers, including three-wheel drivers, office cleaning crews, security officers, meal providers and shuttle bus drivers their regular wages during this period of office closure.”
WSO2 believes that while initiatives to protect public health and containment should gather momentum, efforts should also be made to minimize the economic and societal impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. The company encourages other organizations to look at similar initiatives to cushion the blow from lost wages owing to office closures and telecommuting. For example, firms could look at leveraging lower overhead and resource costs to continue paying these workers, who are often outsourced.
While there has been no direct impact on the WSO2 staff to date in the face of growing concerns over the pandemic’s impact on employee health and safety, the company has already taken strict precautionary measures to reduce the risk of community spread. These steps include instituting a limited work-from-home policy effective from March 16, 2020, initiating a comprehensive employee communication and education plan and observing tighter international travel restrictions. Founded in 2005, WSO2 enables the composable enterprise. Our open source, API-first and decentralized approach, helps developers and architects to be more productive and rapidly build digital products to meet the demand. Customers choose us for our broad, integrated platform, approach to open source and digital transformation methodology.
The company’s hybrid platform for developing, reusing, running and managing integrations, prevents lock-in through open source software that runs on-premises or in the cloud. With offices in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the US, WSO2 employs over 600 engineers, consultants and professionals worldwide. Today, hundreds of leading brands and thousands of global projects execute over 6 trillion transactions annually, using WSO2 integration technologies.
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