By Mohan Krishnamoorthy
It has been over a year-and-half since white collar workers around the world abruptly switched to Work from Home (WFH). The transition, although instantaneous was seamlessly enabled by technology building blocks that had already been in place including Zoom and ubiquitous access to internet in urban cities around the globe.
While it took a bit of adjusting to the “new normal” and ways of working with a few video hiccups along the way, the benefits were obvious. WFH was a workplace leveler – almost everyone in a zoom meeting had the same ‘voice.’ While we complained of back-to-back meetings, for many of us not having to commute hours-a-day is a luxury we have come to accept with the “new normal.” Given the ease of adoption of WFH, it was expected to continue after the pandemic abated. During the height of the pandemic, corporate executives and consultants voiced opinion about how permanent work-from home would continue for a long time, if not forever.
Enough with the pandemic and lockdowns: let’s plan a Return to Office?
Fast forward to middle of 2021. Many western economies led by the US and Europe are beginning to shift gears into a post-pandemic era. Large segments of populations are getting fully vaccinated, and masks-in-public mandates are being removed. With the resurgence of economic activities, executives of large companies are beginning to get vocal about bringing their employees back to the offices.
Google’s parent Alphabet Inc set the ball rolling by telling employees to prepare a return to their desks by Sept. 1st, and that anyone wanting to work remotely would have to get prior approval. About a month ago, tech giant Apple’s CEO Tim Cook sent an email to employees announcing a “new” work model requiring them to return to in-office work on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays starting in the fall of 2021. The note reportedly said, “For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” he said. “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate.”
Another influential tech leader, Satya Nadella echoes this sentiment when he told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council: “When people say you’re working from home, it feels sometimes like you’re sleeping at work…. Thirty minutes into your first video meeting in the morning, because of the concentration one needs to have on video, you’re fatigued. ” In what the tech giant is calling the “new hybrid approach,” Microsoft began to welcome some employees back to its U.S. headquarters in late March.
The banking giant Chase is taking RTO to the extreme by expecting “all” American employees back in the offices. “We would fully expect that by early July, all U.S.-based employees will be in the office on a consistent rotational schedule, also subject to our current 50% occupancy cap,” the bank said in a recent memo. Similarly, Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon called working from home an “aberration” that was bad for innovation and collaboration and said it was not “the new normal.”
What does this Return to Office (RTO) trend mean to us?
As bellwethers like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and Chase begin leading the RTO bandwagon, it is likely that other executives across the corporate landscape will observe and follow suit. Many other corporate leaders have been sitting on the fence, waiting for an all-clear on the pandemic, and are also cautiously gauging employee sentiment. While corporate executives plan for a phased RTO, some office workers who have got accustomed to WFH with its flexibility are loath to got back to the “old normal.”
An article in the Wall Street Journal explores this sentiment by examining how “Remote Work is the New Signing Bonus.” The article quotes Marc Cenedella, the founder and CEO of Ladders, a job-search site for high-paying roles, saying “greater flexibility is shaping up as a perk that companies can wield to poach talented people. Remote is going to be the new signing bonus.” He adds “Instead of dangling, ‘We’ll give you $10,000 if you sign for this job,’ it’ll be: ‘Instead of having to commute 35 minutes every day, go to work, and get in your car and drive 35 minutes home, you can work from your home office all the time.’ ”
The global RTO trend is shaping the Indian tech sector
The Indian IT and Enabled Services sector (ITES) that employs nearly 6 million people closely follows work practices led by global client organizations. Executives at ITES companies that service global clients like Apple, Microsoft and Chase may decide to follow the RTO practice of their clients. However, such a Return to Office is not going to be a linear move, especially as India is just beginning to emerge from the deadly second wave.
Many ITES companies experienced the devastating impact of the pandemic directly when their employees and their families were affected. Corporate leaders began taking an active role in helping the fight against the pandemic – some donated money while others pooled in resources to import ventilators, oxygen concentrators and even setup makeshift hospital beds in their empty offices. ITES companies have also led the vaccination drive by setting up special “Vac Camps” for employees and their families.
As of July 2021, Indian ITES executives are certainly not making waves with big Return to Office announcements, but some are already backpedaling earlier predictions. For instance, during the peak of the first wave of pandemic, India’s largest software exporter TCS blogged how “Remote workers are here to stay…. They will become a fixture of the workplace this decade, especially as companies like ours make it easy for large organizations to keep their at-home workers highly productive and their technology highly secure.”
The company is now softening its WFH stance. Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran was recently quoted saying even though a “hybrid” model will be the new normal in the future, TCS will ask employees to come to work “once the pandemic is over as social interactions are a social necessity.”
With companies like TCS leading the RTO, other ITES companies are likely to follow suit.
About the Author
Mohan Krishnamoorthy is an Indian American technology executive with a multinational company. The opinions in this article are his own and not that of his organization. His viewpoints and papers have been published in several international technical and nontechnical journals. He can be reached at mohan@garamchai.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohanbabuk/