Indian IT firms keen on reviving pre-Covid work culture

Indian IT services companies are slowly nudging their employees to come to offices on all five days of the week. This is a marked departure of their stated stand of facilitating hybrid work that incorporates both remote and in-office operating models. Post the pandemic, IT firms have been slowly nudging their staffers to work from offices. Initially, the operating model required the staffers to come to offices for three days a week. Such hybrid model is prevalent in many of the large and mid-tier IT services companies. However, the trend is slowly moving towards all five working days in office. Reports suggested that the country’s largest IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has asked its employees to operate from offices on all five days of the week from October.

"As communicated by the CEO and chief human resources officer (CHRO), it is mandatory for all associates to attend office on all the working days, starting from October 1," the TCS communiqué reads. This implies that the days of work from home will soon be a thing of the past. Like TCS, many other IT firms are also nudging their employees to operate from offices on all days. Sources in the know said that many GCCs (global capability centres) are following suit. Those which allowed complete remote work are now asking their employees to come back to offices at least for a few days in a week. Slowly but steadily, the trend of physical work is catching up to the pre-pandemic levels.

In this context, it is noteworthy to analyse the possible impact of such a trend. Many of the employers are complaining that productivity levels are low when staffers operate from home. Moreover, clients are not forthcoming to grant engineers to work from home as they used to be during pandemic period due to privacy issues. Moreover, a company’s culture gets firmly rooted among employees when they operate in close spaces with team members. In a way, remote work culture poses the risk of erosion of these cultural values. Hence, companies are keen to get their employees back to their workstations. In hindsight, these measures could prove detrimental to the well-being of employees. Hybrid work provides flexibility to employees and encourages participation of women staffers.

So, any move to operate all five days from offices many see good number of resignations of women staffers. Some companies have already seeing this trend. Similarly, remote work has the potential to hire staffers from tier-II and tier-III cities. It helps in getting access to a larger pool of talent. Operating physically from offices can mar these opportunities. However, the truth remains that the market always plays out as per the demand-supply dynamics. When demand was good and IT firms were facing high attrition, they were keen to accommodate the needs of staffers. Now, the demand situation is tight and it is the firms that are calling the shots. This has prompted many of them to impose norms that suit their interests the best.