Let Home Be the Home Again!

One of the bad effects Corona pandemic had on some business sectors, especially IT sector is to push the workforce in a comfort zone called Work From Home. The mitigation strategy adapted by the industry has over the period became a kind of new normal. It was a strategy adapted to keep the meter ticking to minimize the loss due to total shutdowns. It was a win-win for both companies and employees. And sometimes it got presented as a better model of business. Some companies even declared YOY profit increase. However the profit figures were fundamentally flawed. Significant savings on operational costs like office leaze, electricity bills and office consumables made the topline and bottom lines run little closer. Actual sales never went up as customers too were playing it safe. Everybody was radiating generosity, forgiving some mistakes, flaws and defects. Once the initial zest subsided, complacency and compromise creeped in the employee behavior hampering quality of deliverables and customer experience. Customers realized that they are loosing and need to push back and they did. In turn the companies realized that they need to push back and they did. And obviously now employees feel that they are going to loose on the collateral benefits of WFH and are showing reluctance to switch back to normal work environment, i.e. to go to office for work. What was considered a win-win, within 3 years, turned into a total loose-loose situation.

WFH is a mirage disguising employees into improved work life balance. Rather than work life balance they are more reluctant to loose the extra savings they made in these 3 years. And mind you, savings are significant. This can be cross-validated with the increased spending power by analyzing the E-commerce website data. But the price they are paying for these short term fringe benefits is long term and huge. Especially the new workforce that joined the IT sector in last 4 years are not even exposed to the basic activities and skills like:

• Team building
• Soft skills
• Client exposure
• War room discussions etc.

Teams are only on paper and every team member identifies themselves as individual contributors with no co-ordination, integration experience and accountability.

Bharat has long back lost its credibility as efficient and cost-effective work force. Jobs are already being shifted to other countries that has learnt the lessons quickly and are delivering quality services. 50% recession in Bharatiya IT sector is self-incurred. We need the course correction with immediate effect and I would seriously recommend the IT fraternity to embrace back the normal way of working before its too late.

Stop Working from Home before you end up Searching from Home!

Thanks!