Even as IT companies are opting for the hybrid model of working in the long term that involves working from home for some days and working from the office the rest, the companies will have various approaches to the hybrid model. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in an e-mail sent to its employees talked about 3Es — Enable, Embrace and Empower — when it comes to the hybrid model.
Embrace
In the work from home, environmental distractions are too many including house chores, child schooling and pet care, among others. With no clear separation or boundary between work and home, it is highly possible to get onto an “always online” mode. This requires some constructive thinking and prioritisation of ‘living holistically’ over ‘eat-work-sleep’.
Enable
TCS in the article, titled ‘the future of work from anywhere’, said that while an individual might be ready to embrace, what is an equally important question to ask is, whether our organisation is ready to enable the right ecosystem to ‘work from anywhere’?
Organisations need to do more than just lip service, marketing talks, press releases – they need to focus on and enable the right conditions and environment to facilitate the remote working. “One of the bigger challenges an organization faces today is that external ecosystem, regulations, laws, and guidelines have still not evolved with the ‘New Normal’, and act as an impediment instead of an enabler to facilitate “Work From Anywhere”.”
Empower
Both organisations and individuals need to be empowered in new ways to work from anywhere. The individual and organisational contexts need to be bridged with socio-technical solutions. Individuals, teams and management have specific and intersecting needs and challenges that need to be considered.
TCS has also set up hot desks and occasional operating zones to allow its associates to plug in their system in any office around the country and get connected to the global workforce instantly. It has also adopted a 25×25 policy, under which it will require not more than 25 per cent of the company’s associates to work from an office at any given point in time, and they need not spend more than 25 per cent of their time in the office.
Infosys Hybrid Plan
Infosys has a three-phased plan to call employees back to the office, and in the long term, the company also plans flexibility for employees to join the company physically. “We have already rolled out the first phase in April and under this, people who are in their home locations where DCs (development centres) are located or are in the upcountry town close to the DCs are being encouraged to come to the office twice a week,” its Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy said.
In the second phase, he said the company will encourage people who are outside the DC towns to start making preparations over the next few months to see if they can come back to their base development centres. “In the long term, we are looking a the hybrid model on work, depending upon the clients, regulatory environment and a number of other considerations,” Roy added.
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