WSO2 Pledges to Pay Daily Workers and Support Staff While Employees Work Remotely

To minimize the economic hardship brought on 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

Colombo, Sri Lanka - March 13, 2020 - 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 asked to change their routines, or just stay at home.

While many employees, especially those in tech firms similar to WSO2, can do their jobs away from offices, large companies also have daily support staff - who do everything from cooking and delivering meals to driving shuttles and cleaning offices. They cannot do their jobs remotely, and, in many instances, are employed by other businesses that are too small to continue paying them. These low-income workers, who often live from paycheck to paycheck, may not have 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 want to do the right thing for our support family. We recognize the difficulties lost hours and work can mean for them," WSO2’s CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana said. "As a result, we’ve decided that we will 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 closures."

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 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.

About WSO2

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 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 5 trillion transactions annually using WSO2 integration technologies. Visit https://wso2.com to learn more. Follow WSO2 on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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