26, Is work from home really here to stay, or we are seeing the end of it already

The newsletter on Human Resource expert opinion, for the Indian context

Work From Home has taken a lot of management time over the years, right from the middle of 2010s, when it was discussed, to COVID and now post-COVID when it has seen various kind of dimensions.

In fact, it has now reached alarming proportions, and many influencers and people who can influence decisions are now taking sides.

Whether it is A side, B side, whatever, now people have views on Work From Home, strong views.

So let us try and give a fair discussion to this topic, to try and see whether it's relevant, it's not relevant, or will it stay, or will it not stay?

As we discuss Work From Home, let us talk about the concept of Work From Home, and another associated concept called flexible working. Work From Home basically means, as all of us understand, that the physical location where the person works has changed, which means rather than being present in the physical premises of the workplace, which is where all of us go as an employee and work, to where the person stays, which means that the timings that I had, the method of timings that I used to have in the physical office, the breaks that I took, the meeting schedules that I had, all of those continue.

The only thing that changes is that the supervision that I was under, it was physical supervision, when the person was going to physical office premises.

But now that physical supervision is not there, but there's technological supervision by whatever methods, whether it is keypad stroke measurement, whether it is log in log out time measurement, or whatever.

So the only change that work from home is supposed to be doing is changing your physical time. The lunch break is one to two, even work from home, the lunch break is one to two. If your tea break is for a particular time, your tea break is for a particular time. If your day starts at nine and ends at six, even work from home, the day starts at nine and ends at six.

Whereas, when we talk about flexible working, the focus is more on the outcome, focus is more there on the output, when you finish something.

So there is not so much of request, not so much of monitoring that what time do you start, what time do you end. There's not a lot of supervision that when do you come, what do you do, are you taking breaks, not taking breaks. The autonomy given to a person to perform their task, the autonomy given to a person to be able to deliver the product is fairly high. And they can really mould how they work, what kind of schedule they have, what kind of interaction they have with people.

And this has been going on for a very long time, normally you have people who were consultants, you would have people who were freelancers, operating in this kind of a model.

So what is the issue?

I mean, if work from home is a fairly simple concept of just changing the location from A to B, why would there be a problem?

The problem is of mixing work from home with flexible working.

And the lack of trust that has actually started coming in during work from home. So the lack of trust comes in when it is believed that people who are at work from home are actually doing dual employment and are actually not doing work from home in the true sense, but doing flexible work.

it is believed that people who are at work from home are actually doing dual employment and are actually not doing work from home in the true sense, but doing flexible work

And there have been many issues of this which have been reported, whether it is people doing vacations during work from home time or whether they are going to pick up their family members and not taking leaves. And now, just to give the organization the benefit of advantage, all these things, when you do it on paid time, add financial cost to the organization, add a lot of client debatable cost to the organization.

So this is causing a lot of issues. But just to give it a clear discussion point from the other side, it's not that when physical offices are working that people don't do dual employment. There are many cases of dual employment even when people are working. It's not that people don't say that I'm going on official duty and they don't go on vacation. That kind of thing also happens. It's not that people don't fudge their entry coming into an office and give various kinds of excuses to be off duty.

Therefore, giving an explanation that work from home has really caused a lot of damage in terms of employee cheating. I think the cheating was continuing even in the other environment. Maybe now it is maybe at a greater stage.

Nobody has that data, but this may be the assumption. But let's talk about fact rather than opinion.

The fact is, ever since these discussions have happened, there have been many researches, many researches being done by many credible institutions, credible organizations which are involved in the business of research, in the business of education, management education. And there is no doubt about what they are saying.

It's clearly saying that people at particular levels, specifically mid and junior level, are very clear about this, that work from home is here and it's there to stay.

Work from home is a demand which cannot be ignored and which has to be met by employees. What is clearly coming out is that work from home is here to stay.

What we really need to figure out are the terms of work from home. It's not whether the concept will stay or not. What we need to figure out for every organisation is what are the terms that are acceptable to my workforce.

What we really need to figure out are the terms of work from home. It's not whether the concept will stay or not. What we need to figure out for every organisation is what are the terms that are acceptable to my workforce.

What is the acceptable term to me as an organisation? And this is the discussion that needs to happen. In fact, as a matter of fact, as organisations begin their journey, flexible working is also going to eventually catch up. And over a period of next couple of years, flexible working will also end up being a necessary aspect that needs to be given to employers.

We may call it the next labor revolution, but work from home and flexible working is now a change that's happening in the global economy, in the global corporate lifestyle, and this is something that organizations will have to live with.

Fighting it, resisting it, is only going to make things worse for the organization's adapting journey. Trying to build systems right from now is going to make it easier so that the organisation will learn from its own experiments, whether you start with a small entity, small group, but over a period of time, you'll be able to find the appropriate method. Maybe as time progresses, legislations also come out, like every country eventually did come out with labor laws, so maybe these legislations also come out.

What we are recommending that organizations should do is that you need to initiate the journey of work from home so that you have your own data, you have your own culture of learning, you have your own method of figuring out what is working for you and what is not working for you, and understanding what is acceptable to the employees, what is acceptable to the top management. And as time progresses, build a culture of trust and build a culture of accountability.

Because if these two are built, then it's going to be only a matter of enhancing the policy, enhancing the terms to be able to have a very good, systematically working work from home culture or work from home policy that works for your organisation.

India HR Guide is aimed at discussing and shedding light on aspects in a crisp manner that organisations in India follow in the area of Human Resources. It is aimed at CEO's, MD's and line managers to understand how various aspects of Human Resources can help shape their organisations journey in India. Our industry leading expert, Mandeep Singh, offers years of accumulated knowledge from having advised clients across sectors, and spread across the remotest corner of the country. Let's make the workplace, a better place.

To read "India HR Guide" Subscribe on LinkedIn or hear us on YouTube.