Of WFH/ WFO/ WFA and Hybrid model tussle!

[nRiTeCh]

Now, that the Covid pandemic has ended (at least in India), the promises made by cos. during the pandemic like TCS, Infosys and few others stating it will be Remote/WFH/WFA till yr 2025 or forever has been broken as employees have been called to report to their base office locations to be presented physically.


During the pandemic, almost everyone returned to their homes given the situation and were working safely yet 101% efficiently!
Still many of these have not returned to their base locations, rather reluctant to return and some are homesick while others have some dependencies on them..

Pandemic has impacted everyone's lives and changed how life was then and how it is now.. On a personal note, one person's life might have an impact on the entire family and change the course altogether!

But covid has shown the world that maximum office desk jobs can be easily done remotely provided one has those stable communication bare essentials. In fact, during covid, the work productivity was surprisingly more than the office which kept cos. alive even in the bad times..

My few friends and colleagues were called back to the office where they again had to start from zero...rented house, travel, etc. so they resigned and joined cos. where they still are working from their homes while taking care of their dependents too. striking a very good balance between work and personal priorities.

The negotiations with their ex-employer didn't go well as they insisted or were pretty adamant on the name of policies to ask them to report immediately to their base office while totally ignoring other aspects of the employee.
While only very handful of co.s have changed their policies to permanent remote working and stayed true to it!


The war is still ongoing where young managers prefer WFO/ WFA or Hybrid models while the old vintage seniors still prefer WFO purely! (Some reasons like unable to keep up with the technology and unable to manage it remotely) and could not cope up with the trend!

I'm in support of the WFH/ WFA model with a once in a while Hybrid.

Discuss and share your thoughts on the same..Rants welcomed too as far as they aren't targeted personally..
HRs here joining this discussion will be great!

 

[ibose]

WTH is WFA ?

 

[nRiTeCh]

WTH is WFA ?

Anywhere.. like beach/cafeteria/picnics etc.

 

[lockhrt999]

Preferring work from home. I could do occasional trips to office provided it's within 15 minutes, there are no potholes or speed breakers, traffic is neat, there's no gunda police raaj.

These day, when I leave home, I get angry at sheer incompetence of the people who manage roads and traffic. Every time, I lose my mental peace and reduce my life by a day.

 

[enthusiast29]

Hybrid is a healthy way of working IMO.

You need to be able to know your colleagues well to function well as a Team. Humans are social animals and we do well by socializing with each other. Every once in a while even an introvert needs to talk to someone and chill.
Once or twice a week WFO is good and I'm following that since April when office opened, it's still voluntary so mostly once a week but it's been a very good and balanced experience for me.

 

[gourav]

Totally agree with what @enthusiast29 said. I had full work from home till Feb. Started 1 day per week office from March and moved to 2 days per week from June. I'm happier for the opportunities to interact with my colleagues and get to know them better. We were also able to plan a Lonavla trip with the team once we started meeting in office. During WFH, we only ever spoke about work.

 

[nRiTeCh]

Some cos. like mine are forcing people to office at least thrice a week esp. when the entire project team sits in another office location like Chennai in my case. So what am I going to do coming to office at my base location when I do not have people/teammates to interact with, forget the desk arrangements as the project itself is not in my home location.
This is simply pure stupidity in the name of policies enforced on employees like us.
This again goes into a heated argument with the HRs and managers and many people prefer to shift cos. and not projects as this BS is becoming widely common as well.

 

[dpandey]

WFH is unfair to youngsters. Older employees, who know the work and each other well, do not need to meet in person. Younger ones benefit a lot by interacting with seniors. Even cafeteria/hallway discussions can teach you things.

For the manager who is worried about continuity, bringing people into the office is important. You do not want to be in a situation where the older employees just 'do their work' and then retire without training the next generation.

Then there is the political angle. The builder lobby, which is very influential, is dead against WFH. If WFH model succeeds, they go out of business. There is (apparently) a lot of political pressure of companies to resume working from office.

 

[nRiTeCh]

WFH is unfair to youngsters. Older employees, who know the work and each other well, do not need to meet in person. Younger ones benefit a lot by interacting with seniors. Even cafeteria/hallway discussions can teach you things.

For the manager who is worried about continuity, bringing people into the office is important. You do not want to be in a situation where the older employees just 'do their work' and then retire without training the next generation.

Then their is the political angle. The builder lobby, which is very influential, is dead against WFH. If WFH model succeeds, they go out of business. There is (apparently) a lot of political pressure of companies to resume working from office.

Yes, wfh isn't fair for freshers at all. This point I mentioned but got wiped when I typed pros/cons but then decided to delete it and keep it within discussions.
For freshers or the ones having less than 3-5yrs exp. should be WFO but again the category of exp. levels and nature of job only can suggest a suitable model which again might differ across jobs.
Its essential for them to get groomed in office culture, etiquette, values, processes, discipline, communication, presenting skills etc.

As for training, grooming, mentoring, such people should be in Hybrid model or if he/she is a trainer then a full-time WFO is best suited but again that has been replaced comfortably by Teams and Google meet.

Some managers are been pressurized by management to recall his team to office irrespective even if the US/UK client is perfectly fine with remote working. Then if such teams are operating 24*7 rotational support, many of them are resigning or asking for a project change as now nobody prefers coming to office at 10-1130pm and leave by 6-7am...this is now been seen as old school concept. Rotational projects are best served from home to benefit both employee health and the organization.

I have not yet came across nor aware about any political pressure in full-fledged resumption of WFO.
Builders have ample of other opportunities like business plaza to be rented for small offices, startups etc. which otherwise operate from residential buildings or even small flats.
Its only a matter if they wish to do it or not..
People are even taking remote jobs anywhere in the world and if this thing starts becoming too common builders will be too late to deploy their best strategies and be constraint wiht only residential thing!

 

[najayaz]

Hybrid is best tbh, I mean there shouldn't be any pressure on every single person to come to office on every single work day. When people feel like there is a need they can come and when they think they can do the required duties from the comfort of home, that should be a good enough reason to stay home. There are days when I feel like going to office to discuss some stuff with peers and there are days when I have a shit ton of work to finish on my own and no time to spend in an hour long commute to office. Flexibility is the right way to go always.

 

[gokul.ece22]

Im working from home since the onset of pandemic.
Now company has decided to end Work from home and planned to switch to Hybrid work model from next month(November).

Since rainy season has started, we have asked the management to postpone starting the hybrid model to January. Waiting for the outcome.

Client has no objection for work from home.
Even managers/TLs are reluctant to return to office.

Only management is adamant in resuming office that too in rainy season.

 

[calvin1719]

It depends on the business and the types of employees you have working with you. The type of people I manage aren't the most professional ones, they are not reliable to ensure themselves that they are able to work. This hits my performance and there's a limit to how much I can keep an eye on them if they're remote. Someone who doesn't want to work can find X ways of not working, but a lot of these are easier to control from a management perspective if work is from office.
For a lot of businesses though, hybrid makes the most sense. but even so, having one policy across the company is not wise, and different policies for different LOBs would be the way to go, after evaluating each individually.

 

[enthusiast29]

Since rainy season has started, we have asked the management to postpone starting the hybrid model to January. Waiting for the outcome.

This reminds me of school days, rains always being an excuse for a "rainy day" holiday.

 

[asingh]

I like WFH and it is much more efficient. In firms where 18H/high burn are standard (during case work), one can balance family and do work too--and perform.

 

[kalph09]

My office is at Ecospace, Bellandur, the mother of all traffic jams and flooding culminate here.

On a serious note, I opted for permanent WFH. My role is that of an individual contributor, with no workload sharing, or dependencies, and other team members sitting in different parts of the globe. The office does not make sense much.

 

[t3chg33k]

My office is at Ecospace, Bellandur, the mother of all traffic jams and flooding culminate here.

On a serious note, I opted for permanent WFH. My role is that of an individual contributor, with no workload sharing, or dependencies, and other team members sitting in different parts of the globe. The office does not make sense much.

It doesn't make sense for a lot of individual contributor roles with team members in different locations. Problem as is always middle management trying to justify their existence in terms of ensuring employee productivity and mentoring, even if neither is really helpful.

Even if clients shower praises on a contributor's effort, it is not enough to convince the middle and senior management about people being more productive when they don't have others around to waste time. At the same time, a lot of companies will also not bear the expense of bringing the team together for a short period of time, even as they tout benefits of working together.

It needs a mentality change in the upper echelons. Good that you have a choice that should ideally be available to everyone, in which case you will find that only a small proportion of the workforce actually wants to WFO regularly if there is no directive.

 

[nRiTeCh]

I like WFH and it is much more efficient. In firms where 18H/high burn are standard (during case work), one can balance family and do work too--and perform.

This... I dont have to specifically rely on weekends to enjoy leisure time, movies etc. & other stuff to be pushed only for weekend 2 days like the typical old style. I can even work on weekends no problem as far as its wfh/wfa.

In fact in this yr I have taken only 1 official leave else I usually take 15+ leaves in a calendar year. Still, I have to forcefully take 12 official leaves else they will be getting lapsed!

My office is at Ecospace, Bellandur, the mother of all traffic jams and flooding culminate here.

On a serious note, I opted for permanent WFH. My role is that of an individual contributor, with no workload sharing, or dependencies, and other team members sitting in different parts of the globe. The office does not make sense much.

Same here.. hence wfo/wfh perfectly suits me!