With the covid-19-period refrain of work from home (WFH) being the new normal all but forgotten, most companies now want their employees back in office. And the country’s largest white-collar employers, the IT services giants, are leading the trend. As the job market has now cooled following the heydays of 2021-22, organisations are now insisting that employees come to the office.
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For instance, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with over 600,000 employees, wants its workforce to come to the office five days a week, in a stark departure from its 25×25 vision announced in 2020. The initiative had called for only 25 per cent of its employees to work out of TCS premises at any time, with associates spending only 25 per cent of their time in the office by 2025.
Incidentally, TCS noted an “unusual” trend in its annual report for FY23, of more women employees than men leaving its employment in FY23, as its return-to-office policy led to a “reset of domestic arrangements”. Yet, the firm is keen to call back its employees, as the company’s CHRO Milind Lakkad noted in the report: “Workplace essentials like collaboration, mentorship and team-building suffered a lot in these two years.”
Infosys, too, reportedly wants entry- and mid-level employees to work from the office for at least 10 days a month starting November 20, while Bengaluru-based Wipro and Noida-based HCL Technologies, have asked their employees to attend the office at least three times a week. Other IT majors, such as Capgemini and LTIMindtree, have also been urging their employees to return to the office more often. “While many employees are now receptive to returning to the office, a preference for a hybrid work model persists over a complete return,” says Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD & CEO of CIEL HR Services, citing their own study of 1,000 workers, which found that four out of 10 employees were open to working in the office but in a hybrid framework. But, he highlights that this transition poses challenges for women, with 5 out of 10 women employees still favouring remote work with flexibility.
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“It would be a challenge for organisations to bring their entire workforce to the office full-time as it may have negative effects on employee engagement and reflect in the company’s attrition rate,” he says. Consequently, firms must find a balance between in-office and remote work.
