Why IT Companies Are Keen to End Work from Home
The pandemic brought new paradigms to the way companies worked. After an initial shock, most of the companies settled down with remote working. This included companies from all sectors, barring a few essential services industries.
Now that the pandemic is over, almost all sectors, except IT companies have returned to their original format of working from the office. Many companies tested the idea of permanent remote working initially, but eventually gave up for many reasons, except the IT companies. The IT companies thought remote working was here to stay, given the many benefits remote working seemingly offered.
However, the government and the managements of IT companies slowly realized that there were more disadvantages of remote working than the advantages. Let us look at why remote working cannot be a long-term strategy even for IT companies from the perspective of the government first, and then the managements of these companies.
The Government
Why is the government interested in bringing the employees of IT companies back to offices? To answer that, let us first understand what SEZs are and why do they exist. Special Economic Zones or SEZs, as they are called, are demarcated areas where foreign exchange earning companies enjoy considerable tax benefits, top-notch infrastructure, and government support. The SEZs were created with an intention to boost local economy of the area where they are located, by making them hubs of employment. Not only direct employment, but also secondary and tertiary employments in the form of the requirement for the ancillary services like transportation and facilities management. The SEZs would also kickstart the real estate market in the area, owing to increased demand, thus bringing an overall prosperity to all the stakeholders. Many SEZs have successfully fulfilled this motive by uplifting the economic status of the geographical area around them. However, with the pandemic induced work from home (WFH), most of the SEZs were deserted because almost all the IT companies are located in SEZs across the country.
Now that the pandemic is over and employees in other sectors have returned to their offices, the governments are keen on restarting the SEZs as well, due to the following reasons.
1. Many ancillary services organizations have represented to the government that even though there was no impact on the incomes of the IT and ITES employees working in the SEZs, the ancillary services provider employees’ incomes ran dry, impacting hundreds of thousands of households that were dependent upon them. Since all the pandemic related restrictions are now lifted, the SEZs should also start functioning normally to restore the livelihoods of the ancillary services’ employees. The government is obliged to protect the livelihoods of these employees as they constitute a major share of votes in the elections.
2. The developers and managers of SEZs have invested huge sums of money, building and maintaining them, and if WFH trend catches up, the demand for these office spaces, both leased and outright, will dwindle away, leaving the SEZs to bleed away into ghost towns. This could cause a cascading effect on the economy as many banks and other financial invested large sums in SEZs.
3. Many labor commissioners have highlighted a disturbingly increasing trend of dual employment by employees working from home which is in contradiction with the labor laws of the country.
Considering the above and to weave in the interest of all the stakeholders, The Ministry of Commerce & Industry has amended the Special Economic Zone Rules, 2006, by adding a new rule 43A that allows companies to offer work from home to their employees, subject to a maximum of 50% of the total employee strength. The department of commerce also laid out SOPs on how to implement the 50% rule to ensure there is no discrimination or favoritism while deciding on who gets to work from home and otherwise. These SOPs also aim to ensure that 50% attendance is maintained in the offices at any given time. There are provisions and penalties for not adhering to these norms. This amendment aims to appease both the warring factions, viz. the IT employees and ancillary employees.
The Company Managements
The managements of IT companies have their own logic and explanation for asking their employees to return to offices. Let us understand their perspective as well.
1. Most of their clients are located abroad and the employees of the client companies have already returned to their respective offices. So, the clients are demanding that the employees of the vendor companies, working on their projects, must also return to office. Data security, integrity, and employee availability are the chief concerns cited by the clients.
2. IT Companies’ managements have begun to feel that some employees are misusing the remote working facility. Not all, but only a few are enough to spoil it for everyone. Productivity losses, dual employment, and lack of face-to-face training are the main reasons for the organizations to form such an opinion. Recently, Rishad Premji of Wipro, tweeted that moonlighting is cheating. Moonlighting is a concept where employees take up multiple employments without the knowledge of any of their employers. Moonlighting is a serious phenomenon, not only from the standpoint of employee integrity, but also from the data security perspective, which is of the utmost importance to any IT company, as many of their clients are banks, government organizations and other sensitive industries.
The largest IT company in India, TCS has also asked its employees to start planning to return to offices by 15th November 2022 latest. Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and MD of TCS says “On immediate basis, we will continue to drive the return-to-office model because the 25/25 plan needs to be executed in more controlled manner”.
3. Many HR Managers have opined that work from home may appear to be a very attractive option to employees currently, but the long term impact of work from home will start manifesting itself in a few years to come. Working from home in complete isolation without any peer interaction may lead to personality shift in employees, making them introvert and/or sometimes depressed. Another area the HR managers are concerned about is Learning & Development. The rich takeaways of face-to-face training can never be replaced by remote learning.
Also Read — Why Permanent Work From Is Not Sustainable
However, many employees of IT & ITES companies are fiercely contesting the directives to return to office for many reasons, though not related to pandemic anymore. One such reason could be the comfort zones they have settled into. Many of them are also working from their hometowns where the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in the cities, while continuing to draw the same salaries that were decided initially, considering the cost of living of the city of posting.
Having understood the reasons why governments and companies are rallying behind the cause of bringing IT employees back to offices, it will be interesting to watch the outcome of this tug of war. Ultimately, there has to be solution that protects the interests of all the stakeholders instead of just a few.
Originally published at https://www.brainmaildiaries.com on August 25, 2022.
