The WFH culture may end soon as employers believe it’s non-productive

As Covid-19 cases are on the decline, MNC’s are limping back to normalcy. Fewer cases of Covid-19 has resulted in lesser restrictions worldwide. Despite employees’ satisfaction with a hybrid model, employers are convinced that work from home culture is reducing productivity. Consequently, IT giant Infosys is planning a systematic return of employees to the office. In the beginning, the working days in the office will vary from one to two day per week.

Infosys CEO, Narayan Murthy, said, “I am not a great fan of work from home at all. The work from home model will slowly reduce institutional culture, making it weaker.” He added that in the work from home culture, it is very difficult to build a culture of hard work, imagination, excellence, intuition, meritocracy, discussion and debate in the employees.

According to Richard Lobo, Executive Vice President of Infosys, the company is planning to recall 40-50 per cent of its work force to work from office on any given day. Presently, 96 per cent of employees are working from home. In order to motivate the employees, the company is encouraging managers and leaders to attend office in person for a day or two per week.

Additionally, Tech Mahindra is also asking its employees to join office for at least two days a week, starting April 2022. At present, an approximate 18 per cent of its employees are working from the office. Wipro has already started calling its employees back to its offices. However, the company is only allowing those employees who are fully vaccinated.

However, several tech companies are still opting for work from home despite the normalcy. India’s largest software services firm, Tata consultancy Service (TCS), said that it is working in a compressive remote working policy. According to Milind Lakkad, CHRO, TCS, the company will run 25-by-25 model, wherein only one-fourth of the employees will be required to report to the office at a given time and date. An internal email from the company stated, “TCS expects people to work from home in their “depute” locations even as it expects remote working to continue.”

Additionally, HCL Technologies is also continuing its hybrid work model for the time being. “At present we are monitoring the situation and continue to operate in a hybrid model,” said a company spokesperson.

In the last two years, employees around the world were directed to work from home. Every time there was a slump in Covid-19 cases, a new variant emerged, muddling up the lives of the people. With the dip in cases, employers are now heading back to the normal work from office culture.