Indians still shy to work away from office
18 Sep, 2007, 1339 hrs IST, TNNWho is the most committed employee in your office? You’d probably say – the guy at his desk long before you arrive and long after you leave. You could be wrong! A new survey by Kenexa Research Institute, a unit of Kenexa, a recruitment and retention-consulting firm, finds that employees who work from home or other remote location, report the highest levels of satisfaction with their company.

Seventy-three per cent of the telecommuters surveyed, say they are satisfied with their company as a place to work compared with 64% of office workers, according to the survey in June of about 10,000 US workers.

While the concept of ‘working away from office’ or ‘telecommuting’ has fast picked up in the west (as the figures reveal), it hasn’t really gained grounds in India. “It is a recent phenomena in the Indian context. Reasons range from poor infrastructure to employer’s viewpoint of ‘value addition’ by physical presence of employees,” says Anil Koul, executive director of Omam Consultants.

Adds Kris Lakshmikanth, founder, Headhunters India, “The concept has only picked up at the managerial level, it has yet to gather pace at the workforce level. Senior-level executives travel 30-50 % of their time. MNCs, therefore, encourage them to operate from virtual offices.

“Not really,” contradicts Sukhwinder Ahuja , business leader, Innovative Communication Alliance, Nortel. “We allow employees at all levels to operate from home. The fact that different divisions of a company are spread all across the cities, necessitates telecommuting. In fact, we’ve tied up with Microsoft and come up with a technology where workers can access their office calls on their laptops/PCs.”

“Companies such IBM India, Pepsi, servicesector companies such as PwC, McKinsey is, in fact, encouraging working away from office. In consultancies, one doesn’t have a fixed cabin. The consultants, instead, book cabin space as and when needed. The employees can anyway communicate over mails or tele/audio conferencing,” substantiates Kris.

The idea is, however, yet to trickle down to the not-so-big companies. Exploring the reasons behind this slow process, professor Dishan Kamdar, who teaches organisational behaviour (OB) at Indian School of Business (ISB) says,

“A major concern for companies in India today is the potential security and IT hazards that telecommuting can generate. It may result in increased breach of corporate security . Additionally, it would require the company to entrust company-and client-sensitive information to employees. Given the high levels of attrition, it’s hard to build trust. While stringent data protection laws exist in the US and Europe, India still lags behind.”

Another reason points OB faculty at FMS, Sunita Sengupt, is socio-cultural differences. “There are good numbers of empirical evidences indicating the influence of social role on the structural role at workplace. Teleworking , in Indian context, is not accepted as the employers feel it benefits employees at the cost of company,” she says. Many managers want control over their employees and take an ‘allor-nothing’ approach to permitting telework. “Owner CEO’s psyche is to have employees around him all the time, least concerned about his productivity,” adds Koul.

Cindy Auten, general manager, Telework Exchange, explains that employers do not have to worry about never seeing employees again if they embrace teleworking. “The best technique, she shares, is a phased approach that allows everyone involved to become comfortable with the arrangement. Management needs to understand that the changes can be phased in and that they will see their employees again. Focus on work output is critical, she adds. Once this mindset falls into place, the telework becomes almost transparent. Telework Exchange is a US-based public-private partnership that promotes government telework through various initiatives.

On a different note, Akshay Khanna, who works for a US-based consultancy firm, says, “our company is at ease allowing employees to work from home. But there needs to be some degree of control. I’ve seen people misusing this facility.”

Substantiates Jyotsna Bhatnagar, associate professor, HR, MDI, Gurgaon, “Meant to provide worklife balance and increase morale and productivity of the workforce, telecommuting sometimes does more harm than good. It merges the line between family and work leading to different kinds of conflicts and stress, a feeling of alienation and a pressure to track personal performance more tightly. Lack of personal connect, may lead to a low sense of belonging and ownership in the nomadic virtual workforce. Telecommuting works on a short term basis but fails as a long-term strategy.”

There have been surveys, however, that show the brighter side of the concept. An ITAC (International Telework Association and Council) case study on IBM suggests that IBM’s retention rate among teleworkers is the highest for all employees in alternative work arrangements, and is sharply higher than nontelework employees. So, while there are a few takers for it, we are yet to see how many more will take the concept forward.