The Hindu Business Line : Office@home

Speaking about human imagination, the 18th century English romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said it dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate. Little would he have thought that people, even after 200 years, would use his concept to re-create the very nature of work!

In the brave new virtual world that we live, the future of work lies in work any time, work anywhere and work on any device.

People are slowly overcoming the traditional concept that work needs to be done at a particular place such as an office, and many are showing interest in working from home.

Improvements in the availability of the Internet and network connectivity have also given a boost to telecommuting.

Industry experts say there has been a marked change in the attitude of employers, and many companies have recognised the benefits of telecommuting. Whether it is to provide employees flexibility, or is simply a business need to increase productivity, IT companies in India are willing to let employees work from home for various reasons.

for flexibility or business

At Wipro Technologies, telecommuting is one of the initiatives taken by the company to provide flexibility to its employees.

Joseph John, Vice-President, Talent Engagement and Development, says that at certain stages in life, this flexibility helps employees balance their personal and professional life.

Earlier, employees would either quit or go on long leave. But now they have the option to work from home.

Allowing employees to work from home has also improved productivity and helped companies retain talent.

Rekha Menon, Executive Vice-President, India Geographic Services & Human Capital & Diversity, Accenture, says that in addition to increasing employee reliability and productivity, telecommuting has helped reduce attrition, infrastructure costs and the leave period.

However, for IBM, telecommuting is not just about being nice to employees. For the company, allowing people to work from home is a core business need.

Kalpana Veeraraghavan, Asia-Pacific Leader for IBM Global Work Life Fund, says if employees can cater to clients better from home, the company gives them the flexibility. Employees at IBM interact with global clients across geography and time, and the traditional work culture does not hold true for them.

A better balancing act

For employees too, working from home has its benefits. Most obviously, it spares them the pain of commuting to work on a daily basis. This not only gives them more time for themselves but also to do more work.

Also, it helps employees manage their work more efficiently. Because they do not need to worry about returning home, they can continue working even after ‘office hours’ if needed. An employee who has to return home in time might not always be able to do so.

Moreover, it enables employees to schedule work for the day according to their convenience, making for better balance of their personal and professional life.

Shobha B Halkude, a project manager with Wipro, has opted to work from home because she wants to spend more time with her daughter.

She says working from home is convenient because she does not waste time travelling.

Earlier, since her daughter would wait for her, she found it stressful to keep long hours in office, and would return home though work was pending. But now she can continue with her meetings at ease, she says.

Shobha has been provided with a laptop by her office and her Internet bills are reimbursed to a certain extent. She needs to go to office twice a week, and stays in touch with her team through phone and e-mail. Because her company has allowed her to work from home, she can both take care of her daughter and continue with her job, she says.

Client comfort factor

Wipro introduced the work-from-home programme about three years ago, and at present has 54 employees working from home, compared with 30 to 35 employees a year ago. The company allows only those employees who have a certain degree of experience with Wipro to work from home. Such employees need to come to office twice a week and keep their managers updated.

John says the company always checks with clients to see if they are comfortable with the idea before allowing any particular project to done from the employees’ home.

Projects that need to be done at the customer’s lab in Wipro premises are not allowed to be done from home. Also, sometimes employees need to work in close co-ordination with their teams. In such circumstances, they are not allowed to work from home.

For IBM, the number of employees who work from home has increased 50 per cent since 2004 and now constitutes 15 per cent of its total strength. About 78 per cent of IBM managers have teams with some remote workers.

‘Catching up fast’

Kalpana Veeraraghavan says this concept is catching up fast in India. Employees, especially women who have just delivered, typically outnumber others when it comes to working from home, she adds.

For both Wipro and IBM, when an employee asks for flexibility, the manager has to approve it. It is negotiated between the employee and the manager.

Infosys Technologies Ltd says it allows telecommuting but on a short-term basis. It allows employees to work from home on the basis of medical or personal reasons such as childcare or attending to parents and family.

The company stresses that it is very important to make employees who work from home feel an integral part of the company.

Others companies, such as Subex Ltd, do not have a work-from-home policy, but they allow telecommuting in special cases such as childbirth.

Sanjay Paul Anthony, Senior Vice-President, Human Resources, says most of the employees log-in from home after office to finish pending work and the company reimburses their Internet charges.

Long way to go

But though telecommuting is definitely gaining popularity, it has not grown dramatically.

Rather, it is still need-driven to a large extent. People opt to work from home only if they have babies or have to look after family.

John says in India, people like coming to work because for them office is a social space.

Most of the employees in the IT companies are young, and coming to office gives them the opportunity to spend time with their colleagues. This, he says, is important to the young Indian IT professionals.

Another major obstacle is the lack of reliable infrastructure.

Hemant Sharma, Head, Human Resource, Sun Microsystem, says that even in a city like Bangalore there are frequent power cuts. most of the junior employees in the company do not have back-up power at home. Power and bandwidth are deterring the company from rolling out the work-from-home concept in a full fledged manner, he says.

shamik.paul@thehindu.co.in

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