It has been over two years of living with the Covid-19 pandemic and life appears to be returning to the old normal now. Firms have started bidding adieu to the Work From Home (WFH) model and recalling employees to the offices.

Moving past the Great Resignation and the Great Retirement, companies, especially IT firms, are leading the way in the Great Return – calling their staff back to the offices. Apparently keen on seeing their employees quit their pajamas and once again don their formal pants, companies including RPG Group, TCs, Mahindra Group have started reopening their offices.

RPG group

RPG group chairman Harsh Goenka triggered a debate when he warned IT workers of a mediocre career trajectory if they dug in their heels and worked from home. In a LinkedIn post earlier this month, he wrote, “Employees now need to come back to the office, at least on some days of the week.”

We need to foster the spirit and mission of the organisation, the culture, the creativity, the camaraderie, the water cooler talk. Working from home is no longer a long-term viable option, he stated. His company currently lets half its employees work from home.

This return to the office comes at a time when several startups including Meesho, Swiggy have given their employees an option to work from anywhere.

While they see the hybrid workforce as the new normal, IT services firms are of the view that getting workers to office depends more on what clients want and the employee job profile. The priority, they say, is to return to the office and to the work sites.

At present, India’s biggest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services’ 20 per cent employees are back at work. “On an immediate basis, we will continue to drive the return-to-office model because the 25/25 plan needs to be executed in a more controlled manner,” said Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive officer and managing director, TCS, as quoted by Business Standard.

The pathway to that will first involve getting back to a normal working environment and then getting back to the permanent hybrid environment. We will keep on driving that 20 per cent (the staff that are back to office in the first quarter) to well above 50-60/70-80 per cent levels as we go forward. We should see steady progress every month, he further shared.

Wipro, on the other hand, is not forcing anyone to come to the office. “We have slowly witnessed a trend where clients are insisting employees be at work. We feel it is important to stay connected, as well as provide flexibility to employees,” said Saurabh Govil, president and chief human resource officer (CHRO).

Zensar, the IT services company from RPG Group, has started asking employees to return to office for a few days in a week. Around 10-20 per cent of its employees are working from office locations.

“We are encouraging our associates to work from the office, a few days a week, to ensure they are able to connect with their managers, peers, and colleagues. Additionally, we are providing a flexible option of two/three days a week at the moment,” says Vivek Ranjan, senior vice-president and CHRO, Zensar Technologies.

He further noted that the company is currently following a hybrid work policy. “This will evolve as we slowly get ready to welcome an increasing number of people back to the office. Our hybrid policy will be based on feedback from our employees, customer requirements, regulatory environment, and other factors,” he added.