ADIEU, OFFICE
The workspace as we knew it is a thing of the past. Flexible working patterns, work from anywhere and hybrid models of work are the new normal
Hybrid work models are the new normal; will offices become obsolete?
For millions of Indians, “Going to the office” has meant economic empowerment, progress, independence, aspiration. The past year, though, has changed that. One of the casualties of the Covid19 pandemic has been the office space as we know it. Employers have been forced to rethink how their employees work outside the big campuses and offices built painstakingly, designed to keep employees productive and in office for hours. The realisation that the current model—with its regimented style of work, strict hierarchies and ‘fixed hours’—is flawed has dawned on employers across the world. From Silicon Valley to India, employers and employees have spent the past year reevaluating their priorities. While employers have been figuring out how to measure productivity, prune investments in office spaces and keep staff motivated, employees have taken this time to take stock of their priorities in life, how they work and spend their time.
Tanya Sharma (name changed on request), 33, joined a global consulting, auditing firm in Gurgaon barely a week before the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020. She has since been working from home and has never met her team in person. After the initial challenges of bonding with her team virtually, setting up a designated workplace for herself within her home and sensitising her family that working from home does not mean she is on a holiday, Sharma has fallen into a good rhythm. And while she misses the informal banter and the energy of the office, she does not miss the commute from her Noida home to Gurgaon. She also cherishes the extra time she gets to spend with her eightyearold daughter. For now, Sharma has been asked to continue to work from home and, in fact, the consulting firm has vacated one of its office spaces in Gurgaon. Going forward, Sharma says, she would prefer a hybrid working model rather than a complete WFH setup.
THE TECH REVOLUTION
As the postpandemic economy reopens, employers are looking into the gains made from the acceleration of adoption of technology. Jithesh Anand, founder and CEO at eXlygenze SenseWorks PLC, has been working with companies across sectors, helping them upgrade their technology and HR policies. He says: “The pandemic has accelerated the need to undo our latent work ways. The immediate future will have hybrid workspaces. Location independence will be a relevant factor in our lives.” But in a country like India, what works for one, doesn’t always work for another. Most employers that india today spoke to said the work that can be done virtually will continue to be done virtually, but the models of flexibility will vary.
Nadia Chauhan, joint managing director and CMO, Parle Agro, for instance, is betting on the virtual meetings becoming par for the course since they have proven to be more efficient and costeffective. “Prepandemic, every meeting with our teams in either north, south or east would have to be scheduled in advance and would depend on our travel plans,” says Chauhan says. “Today, we connect seamlessly with our teams across the country. This, I feel, is a massive advantage.” Anand, agrees. He recently got called in for a physical meeting with a traditional business client but instead of making the trip to their office, he convinced them to get on a virtual meeting platform. “They were initially hesitant, but the meeting was still as productive as it would have been inperson,” he says.
However, Chauhan adds that they are “extremely keen to get back on campus”. “Our goal is to be strikingly disruptive and the WFH culture doesn’t create the drive to challenge ourselves and break the mould.”
Meanwhile, Satyajit Mohanty, chief human resources officer, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals, says the company is giving full autonomy to employees to decide how best to do their work. “It is up to the business leaders and their respective teams to decide how they work best. However, in the longerterm, we will be moving to a hybrid model. For instance, in our head office, we will be shifting to a rotational WFH policy.”
REIMAGINING THE WORK CULTURE
Business leaders are still navigating the challenges and demands of the postpandemic economy and what it means for work spaces. Global tech giants, such as Twitter, Shopify, Reddit and Dropbox, have given their employees the option to work from home permanently, while financial industry majors
COUNTRIES AND COMPANIES ARE EXPERIMENTING WITH FOURDAY WORK WEEKS WITH MANY REPORTING AN INCREASE IN PRODUCTIVITY
like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs are expecting their employees back in the office soon. There are many big companies in India that have scaled down their physical office spaces, especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. “One can’t accurately predict the future, but the pandemic has certainly changed how we work,” says Aditya Priyadarshan, managing director, strategy and consulting (talent and organisation), Accenture India. “In fact, our recent report, The Future of Work: Productive Anywhere, encompassing more than 9,000 workers around the world, discovered that most people want a hybrid model— sometimes working remotely and sometimes onsite.”
A study by Gartner, a global research and advisory company, this year found that nearly 50 per cent of global organisations are finding a WFH model beneficial. A global workplace analytics shows that an organisation that works remotely for 50 per cent of their time can save nearly $11,000 for every person per year.
Pankaj Bansal, co-founder and group CEO of PeopleStrong, a leading HR solutions and technology company, identifies some of the key trends that will emerge in the post-pandemic workspace. “There will be more hybrid workspaces, location won’t be an impediment and traditional office set ups will die out. Wellness will become mainstream with several stakeholders taking responsibility for individuals’ mental and physical health,” says Bansal, who is also part of a three-member task force formed to assist the government in bringing major bureaucratic reforms through its ‘Mission Karamyogi. “New-age digital models and solutions will be used to drive delivery mechanisms and work cultures. People will be measured on productivity and outcomes rather than attendance and hours. Those who question the new norms will be deadwood,” he adds. Anand of eXlygenze SenseWorks cites an example of a factory owner who chose to shut down operations for several months rather than invest in smart manufacturing practices. “They have gone into a limbo and are planning to shut down,” he says
Even within organisations, formats could vary depending on different geographies, businesses and functions. A report by consulting giant McKinsey on the future of work states: “Permanent change will also require exceptional change in management skills and constant
pivots based on how well the effort is working over time.”
SHAKING THINGS UP
The pandemic has shed light on maintaining a better work-life balance. Countries and companies are experimenting with four-day work weeks with many reporting an increase in productivity. Flexible working hours will also enable more women to come back into the workforce. Neha Bagaria, founder of JobsForHer, a jobs platform for women, reports an increase in ‘work from anywhere’ listings on the platform over the past year which is bringing a lot of highly skilled women back into the workforce. “Flexibility at the workplace is a massive opportunity creator for women,” she says. But lack of camaraderie, mentoring relationships and fear of being overlooked are some of the cons of remote work that organisations will need to work on.
Our idea of what a typical office looks like—with its private offices, cubicles, pantries and meeting rooms— will have to change. Organisations will have to use technology intelligently—to manage the air flow within the office and ensure social distancing between desks—to enable employees to return to the office. As per the McKinsey report, organisations could create workspaces dedicated specifically to in-person collaboration that cannot happen remotely rather than focus on individual workspaces. The big worry is that those who continue working remotely will be considered corporate second-class citizens. For that, McKinsey says that to maintain productivity, collaboration and learning, the boundaries between being physically present in office and out of office must collapse. “Alwayson videoconferencing, seamless in-person and remote collaboration spaces (such as virtual whiteboards) and asynchronous collaboration and working models will quickly shift from being futuristic ideas to standard practice,” notes the McKinsey report.
WHO CAN GO HYBRID?
The unorganised, informal economy accounts for nearly half of India’s GDP and 80 to 90 per cent of the nation’s workforce. And despite the benefits of remote working, Indian workplaces and employers across several sectors do not have the option to allow remote or hybrid work. The analysis by Accenture points out that a majority of roles in professional services, communication and financial services rank high for remote working, while hospitality, retail and healthcare industries don’t. “Companies will have to focus on proactively
“IN THE FUTURE, PEOPLE WILL BE MEASURED ON PRODUCTIVITY AND OUTCOMES RATHER THAN ATTENDANCE AND HOURS”
–PANKAJ BANSAL Co-founder & Group CEO, PeopleStrong
reimagining their workplaces to suit emerging trends and engaging its remote workforce to improve collaboration, agility and well-being,” adds Priyadarshan.
It might be tempting to revert to the old ways of working, but embracing the future is the only way forward. Bansal of PeopleStrong gives the example of Amara Raja Batteries, a traditional, manufacturing business headquartered in Tirupati, that quickly moved to a “smarter way of doing things”. It established clear protocols—of sanitising and social distancing, on how to board the bus running between the factory and residential colonies close to the campus and staggered work hours for employees.
Another reason why the WFH model might not work for all is simply because Indian homes are not built for it. They don’t have the space for home offices, a reality that many employers have become increasingly cognizant of. Studies have shown that productivity of employees in a WFH scenario is highly dependent on the tools the employees have. Many companies are putting in place policies that will enable employees to claim charges for working out of a co-working space.
Nidhi Dhanju, chief people officer with the Singapore-headquartered Anchanto, a B2B SaaS product company, says they are not planning to open their Pune office until October. The company, she adds, is still evaluating the possibility of a complete WFH set up since nearly all of their 200 employees have gone back to their hometowns. Their productivity continues to be high. And with the threat of the third wave still looming, “it is too much to ask them to come to the office. We have asked employees with small homes with no WFH spaces to look out for co-working stations.”
As per the Accenture’s report, 40 per cent of the workers surveyed felt they could be healthy and effective whether working onsite or remotely. What distinguished these 40 per cent was not the lack of negative stressors in their lives, but their abundance of resources–both at the individual and organisational levels. “Having resources nurtures an employee’s wellness and productivity. What organisations need to focus on instead is providing the right resources to people onsite and remotely,” it states.
Companies are reorienting their policies to focus on wellness and facilitating remote working experiences—from installing home offices (furniture, WiFi) for their employees, offering personalised wellness plans and investing in building digital fluency, to hot-desking, higher autonomy at work and giving them the option to work from anywhere.
The era of ‘the office’ with its banter by the water cooler, brainstorming sessions at the cafeteria and elevator pitches might have ended, but what awaits is a brandnew work space that is smarter, in tune with today’s realities and forward looking. The future is here and employers that adapt quickly will survive and thrive. ■
“FLEXIBILITY IN THE WORKPLACE IS A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY CREATOR FOR WOMEN, ENABLING THEM TO RETURN TO THE WORK FORCE”
–NEHA BAGARIA Founder, JobsForHer