Work from home can be powerful tool

Initially, the move served to highlight how ill-equipped India’s sunshine sectors are, as far as telecommuting is concerned. As per reports, staffers employed in several companies lamented that the management at their workplaces, particularly in IT and IT enabled services (ITES), business process automation, and contact centres were completely unprepared to deploy WFH arrangements for the employees. Industry veteran and former president of Nasscom, R Chandrashekhar was one of the first to go on record to say that the industry has been literally scrambling to set up its own business continuity plan. The irony of this statement is not lost on a nation that counts itself as the back-office of the world. Offering customer and IT support 24/7 to mega corporations around the world, with record breaking downtime recovery stats to boot, it’s hard to believe the industry would find it so hard to migrate. Industry leaders like Tata Consultancy Services’ Rajesh Gopinathan and Infosys CEO Salil Parekh defended the need to restrict workfromhome, as several of their teams supported mission critical services for MNCs, healthcare firms, governments and public service companies, which need to be performed within the office premises.

Despite all concerns, around two-thirds of the Indian IT industry’s 4.36 mn strong workforce has now been shifted to WFH mode and once issues like data security, bandwidth allocation and remote management get sorted out with the use of the right tools, this could emerge as a powerful tool for improved productivity. WFH has the potential to reveal the real contribution made by teams, because as soon as an employee’s contribution stops being measured by the hours spent at the workplace, working remote will lead to savings on rent, real estate, infrastructure and hours spent on commute, ultimately creating lean and efficient organisations.