Dear Colleague,
It is a very relevant question useful for many organizations in the coming days. This CiteHR forum is widely used by millions of colleagues, and this will provide them with insight. Thanks for raising this important subject of the current situation of the 3rd Covid wave.
Your Question:
1. Is it the liability of the company to provide actual food or food allowance to their employees:
a) Those working from home (how these employees are served)
b) Working inside company premises (it will obviously come that they will eat at the company canteen)
Possible Insight to Take a Decision:
In general, there is no liability to extend any food facility for those employees who work from home. The facility is mandatory in factories employing a certain number of employees, like 250 employees or more, in a "Factory" under the Factories Act 1948, which is a mandatory welfare facility to be extended in case the workers are physically working in the factory.
In the case of other establishments like IT/ITES/Service sector, etc., the facility is more of a voluntary nature, providing a productivity-focused/wellbeing-focused facility. Here, employees are provided a balanced food facility with a good ambiance, so that the productivity levels are up, and no time wastages are faced.
The question is to check the CTC structure of the organization before taking a call. If there is a component in the agreed and signed employment contract/agreement with the employees to provide food or food allowance, then it has to be honored, as any reduction will lead to depriving the agreed CTC to the employees. Here, as they are working from home, instead of providing food, an allowance as per CTC might be considered. For example, in the CTC structure, a sum of Rs.50,000/- is factored for food facility and is covered in the overall CTC agreed; depriving may lead to grievances or a reduction in their CTC. You may add this component under any head like "Other Allowance" until the employees work from home.
There may be different views, but this is my view based on my previous experiences in a few organizations. If there is no such cost in the CTC structure, obviously, there is no need to extend any food or food allowance.
2. Which types of specific issues are now the MNCs or Indian MNCs facing regarding this specific topic - "canteen/food provision at the workplace"?
The present challenges are related to the quantity and service staff numbers as now only around 50% of employees come to work, but they have to run the canteen/cafeteria for which the organization has to keep all the staff of the cafeteria at 100%. This involves costs, and companies are trying to look at the possibility of tie-ups with outside caterers too in some places as a "supply," but it leads to complaints on quality, etc. Hence, this is a hygiene factor and has to be managed properly, which many organizations are working on without compromising. This is the present scenario.
3. Are most of the companies planning to take an optimization call on "canteen facilities for both types of employees - WFH and Inside company premises"?
In my view, not much thought is given in this area as of now, and the cafeteria operation is already optimized in the last one plus years to a level of 60% or so in many organizations. In addition to this, you might be aware that the Labour Ministry, Govt of India (as per press information and social media), is thinking of allowing employers to tweak the CTC structure, especially on HRA for those employees who are going to work permanently from home and also to add reimbursement of costs involved for electricity and Wi-Fi/establishment costs incurred by employees who are working from home, etc. Probably, more clarity on this subject is awaited, and we need to wait.