WFH: Tier-2 & 3 cities set to become nodal centers

New Delhi: Corporate, IT employees working remotely might be more open to resuming work from office, if the multinational corporations (MNCs) would be willing to open office spaces in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. BizzBuzz spoke with several corporate employees to know their preference on rejoining work from office and prospects of relocating.

27-year-old Kritika Singh, a consultant data analyst at Absolutdata, a custom artificial intelligence company in Gurgaon, said that she would feel more comfortable at joining work from office only once complete government clearance and guidelines are issued for all IT firms and MNCs in India.

"I have autoimmune disease and have been advised by local government hospital to wait some more time to get Covid-19 vaccination. Well established company do follow all safety protocols, but I would be more comfortable in joining work from office once government declares broader

guidelines on re-joining work for people who have underlying health conditions like mine," Kritika said.

Kritika, who is currently remotely working from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, said that she would prefer a balance of both Work from Home (WFH) and Work From Office (WFO), but an option to work at her place of domicile would be ideal for her. As per the sources, companies such as Accenture may be looking into the option of launching offices in 10 locations of Tier-2 cities including Lucknow, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, and Chandigarh.

The company, over the course of few months, has conducted several surveys to know employee work preferences, including number of days working from office and place of operations. "I worked for Swiggy from June last year and it wasn't too difficult to ease into Work from Home culture. Initially managers were concerned that it may lower production, whereas employees were concerned on extended working hours and communication gap. But ultimately everyone came around the idea to work remotely since problem solving could be done on the spot from the ease of home without having to wait to come to the office the next day," she stated. Akash Gowda, currently working for Dell computers, said that he would prefer to work from his current place of domicile of Coorg, Karnataka.

"Though MNC hirings have not been so affected because of Covid, I would prefer working here from Coorg than relocate to the city. I know a lot of young, unmarried graduates like me who would not be willing to relocate to Noida or Gurgaon or even Bangalore to start work from office. The Covid situation is a lot under control, but I would prefer working from here than go through any certainty of lockdowns or pandemic," he said. While speaking with employees who would prefer rejoining work from office spaces, stated that Work from Home culture has extended working hours in comparison to work from office. Ankush Rana who works for Noida based IT firm Birlasoft, is at present managing a team of over 20 people while working remotely from his native place of Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. "There are certain perks of working from home, but you can end up working for longer duration while the line between professional and personal life burrs. So, I would prefer working from the office, but only once there is 100 percent clearance on Covid," Ankush said. His company has allowed Work from Home until May 2022.