Return-to-office may spur higher attrition

Bengaluru: Indian IT services companies may see high employee attrition in coming quarters if these firms force their employees to come back to offices within a specific timeframe. HR experts are of the opinion that many employees in junior and mid-level (5-10 years of experience) are not keen to return-to-office (RTO) after working from home (WFH) for the last two years. Therefore, companies should encourage employees than making it compulsory to return bank to offices.

"IT companies, which will force employees to return to office, will see high attrition. So, companies have to smartly transition into resuming work from offices. Our advice to companies based on our survey is that not to force people to come back to offices. Rather, they should highlight the positive features of working from offices and encourage them to come back to offices in phases. If they force, then high attrition will happen," Aditya Narayan Mishra, Director and CEO of CIEL HR Services told the Bizz Buzz.

The CIEL HR Services has recently conducted a survey, in which about 2,000 employees from about 620 companies have participated. Out of a sample of 10 employees, 6 of them were not ready to go to office and strictly wanted to work from home.

The employees also rejected the offer of a hike in the salary and better working conditions as well. Since it is more convenient to work from home and moving to their hometowns has reduced the cost of living and standards as well for them. The survey also found out that employees were of the opinion, IT firms should consider the WFH and get the work done in a better manner as this would be a win-win situation.

Indian IT services companies are eager to get their employees back in offices.

The most important reason being the fading understanding of the company culture among staffers who are working from remote locations for the last two years. According to industry watchers, relationship among IT staffers and companies are becoming transactional. This is leading to fall in ethical standards among employees who are resorting to moonlighting (doing two jobs despite restrictions), impersonating during interviews and high dropout of candidates after accepting final offers among others.

Also, attrition rates also remained high on the back of high talent demand apart from ease of shifting jobs. In the last two years, attrition rates are surging amid a robust demand for technology talent. For the quarter ended December 2021, Infosys' voluntary attrition rate stood at 25.5 per cent from 20.1 per cent in the preceding quarter. For Wipro, attrition rate was at 22.7 per cent, up from the rate of 20.5 per cent in the second quarter. Even for the market leader Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which usually had low employee turnover rates, also witnessed a spike. Its attrition rate rose to 15.3 per cent in the third quarter of FY22, as compared to the previous quarter's rate of 11.9 per cent. Things were similar for most mid-tier IT services and engineering services companies.