Companies across sectors including Tata Steel, Flipkart, Marico, LTIMindtree, Boston Consulting Group and Eaton intend to keep the hybrid work model going in the new year, offering flexibility to employees to better maintain work-life balance.
Hybrid work fulfils both employer-employee needs, said experts. Employees want flexibility, but also in-person time with their teams, colleagues and friends at work. Organisations want more people back in offices but recognise that the world of work has changed irrevocably- and employees can be more productive, even while operating in flexible models.
“Flipkart employees have been functioning in a hybrid model for the past few months now,” said Krishna Raghavan, chief people officer, Flipkart. “We will continue to remain flexible in our approach and modify our model as needed – based on both employee needs and external factors.”
In the manufacturing sector, where the majority of employees are back in office, Tata Steel plans to continue with the agile working model it had introduced for white collar employees during the pandemic. Blue collar employees are regularly coming to work.
Categorising different personas
“We have seen a significant increase in the percentage of employees working from home as compared to the prepandemic era,” said a Tata Steel spokesperson.
LTIMindtree calls it the Yin-Yang model. It has steered away from a onesize-fits-all approach, categorising all roles under different ‘personas’— clientoffice, work-office, hybrid and homeoffice—based on roles, client-project requirements and personal preferences “The hybrid model is here to stay, and it is unlikely that the industry will go back to fully working from offices all the time. The journey from here on will involve retaining what is best and fixing what isn’t. Like Yin and Yang, the future productivity of teams and organisations will depend on striking the right balance between working from office and home,” said LTIMindtree CHRO Manoj Shikarkhane. “As normalcy resumes, our plan is to get back most of our workforce in the office in 2023. We plan to extend the Yin-Yang model to a wider employee base and actively advance the personabased approach.”BCG has put in place various flexible and hybrid work models. “There is room for all working models to co-exist and companies that will be able to embrace flexibility in the way they work, how they work, what time they work will be able to attract, engage and retain talent better,” said Suresh Subudhi, managing director and senior partner at BCG.
A November survey by HP bore this out. It found that the hybrid model scores high among Indian employees 92% said it improves work-life balance, 88% said it increases employee retention and 72% found it to be more productive.
“For most employees, there will be no going back to the daily commute and traditional nine-to-five workday, but rather fluidity between remote and in-person work environments,” says Arvind Usretay, commercial leader, India and South Asia at management consulting firm Mercer. “Having said so, sectoral and job role-related differences will continue to remain.”
Companies will invest further in perfecting their hybrid models and it will be interesting to see how they overcome challenges of trust, collaboration, inclusion and engagement, said Mercer’s Usretay.
“However, the good news is that companies are now taking decisions based on nearly three years of data, established structures and systems and equipment to support their employees aspirations and requirements,” he said.
Companies said they are also seeing more employees showing interest in returning to office – at least on some days of the week.
A certain amount of physical interaction is critical for culturalisation and driving innovation, said Marico CHRO Amit Prakash. It’s seeing more staff preferring to come back to the office.
“We are currently in the process of evaluating the best work model for our workforce but are encouraging members to be in office,” Prakash said. “At the same time, we continue to offer flexibility.”
Marico offers an option for location flexibility to employees based on roles and individual needs. It has helped the consumer goods company reach a larger and diverse talent pool.
At most of power management company Eaton’s offices, employees are currently working on a 3:2 basis — three days in and two days out of office. It has also seen an increasing number of employees keen to return to work.
However, the hybrid work trend is here to stay, says Ashish Kapoor, India HR director at Eaton. “Hybrid models allow employees to access remote and on-site working options and provide flexible hours that accommodate their lifestyles,” he said.
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