IT sector may login 3-day work week

Hybrid Work Model on Anvil

- 50% of workforce prefers in office work 3 days a week

- Workforce under 25 and above 40 yrs is interested to return to offices

- Women employees also equally interested to come back to offices

- IT services cos and Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are early adopters of hybrid work model

Bengaluru: More than half of the employees working in the Indian IT industry is likely to return to offices three times a week from January 2022, a study by industry body the Nasscom (National Association of Software and Service Companies) showed. The study conducted by Nasscom with Indeed, said that workforce under the age of 25 and above 40 years is interested to return to offices. Women employees are also equally interested to come back to offices.

"Both employees and employers are equally interested in making a comeback to the workplace in a hybrid setup, whereas 50 per cent of the workforce is likely to return to offices for up to three days a week starting next year. Primarily the junior and senior management i.e., workforce under the age of 25 and above 40 years are eager to return to the workplace as compared to the middle management," the report said.

In the post-pandemic era, companies are preferring to adopt hybrid work model with more than 70 per cent of organizations surveyed keen to operate under this new model. Both IT services companies and Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are expected to be early adopters of hybrid work model among Indian companies.

"Over the last one and a half years, the way tech organizations have run business operations has undergone a massive transformation. The industry is now prepared to gradually re-open and looking at perfecting a hybrid operating model which brings in the best of both onsite and remote operating models. We encourage tech companies to process the reopening in a phased and safe manner while keeping the employee health and safety as the topmost priority," Debjani Ghosh, President of Nasscom said.

The report highlighted that though remote model resulted in higher workforce productivity, risks related to data and cybersecurity are seen along with an impact on organizational culture. Therefore, employees working on domains like data security and dealing with client sensitive data sets are likely to return to offices first.

The management of top four IT firms also echoed similar sentiment during the just- ended September quarterly earnings press conferences. Tata Consultancy Services' CEO, Rajesh Gopinathan had said that the company would get back 70-80 per cent of its employees by end of this year or early next year.

"With over 86% of Infoscions in India having received at least one dose of 'vaccination', we are now preparing to embrace the hybrid work model," Infosys' Chief Operating Officer, Pravin Rao had said. Many companies have also sent official communications to prepare for joining back at offices in the next quarter.