VISAKHAPATNAM: Offices of several information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) companies in the state started buzzing again after a long time of silence and sluggishness as employees began to work from office (WFO) in the wake of the number of Covid-19 cases being on the decline.
The WFO is going to dominate work from home (WFH) under the hybrid work model in the companies under the umbrella of IT Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITAAP). Nearly 30 to 40 per cent of companies started WFO after months-long hiatus owing to the pandemic in the last one-and-a-half years.
Speaking to this newspaper, ITAAP president K. Sreedhar said “We are slowly moving towards WFO as the Covid-19 vaccination of all our employees has almost been done. We witnessed a horrible situation in the peak months of April and May, and several of our IT staff succumbed to the Covid.”
In fact, WFO was resumed in October last year and everybody felt the Covid-19 would disappear without the second wave. But soon after seeing the second wave, the employees and employers were back to WFH and concentrated on the vaccination.
ITAAP chairman (investments committee) R.L. Narayana said “We are now coming back to WFO and closely monitoring the Covid-19 situation in the UK, China and Russia where the cases are rising. We can say that WFO would slowly replace WFH in the hybrid model in the state by end of the financial year 2022.”
He said WFO was better than WFH as it improved peer relations among employees, delivery of quality products and improvement in work culture among less experienced employees. Nearly 30 per cent of 40,000 IT and ITeS employees in the state were having less than five years of experience, he said.
“Seniors like me can handle the situation through WFH, but it is not right to expect the same output from juniors who are working from home. So, particularly for sectors like ours, WFO is the best choice,” Narayana told this newspaper.
An IT company head in Vizag said though they could save money on expenditures like electricity bills, maintenance, cab facilities etc under WFH, they got satisfaction over output when they worked from office only.
“We do not compromise on expenditures for the right product at the right time. Even our clients are also now demanding us to deliver good products and insist us to allow employees to WFO,” the employer said.
