Work from home vs work from office- The quintessential question plaguing all professionals. What to do, what not to? A part of us wants to get dressed, look good, get out of our homes and meet colleagues and friends. Have the 10:00 a.m. chai breakfast routine, swivel the chair post an exhausting call, and catch up on the latest office gossip.
Spend an hour over lunch talking just about everything under the sun, screaming to get heard over the cafeteria din, and then get a cold coffee in just as you like it avatar from one of the cafeteria booths and head back up to the workstation for round 2 of work.
Sounds familiar?? Now Cut 2…….
Getting up at 7:00 a.m. in the morning, loitering around the house, grumpy-faced asking for coffee and breakfast. Check the calendar to see the meetings lined up for the day. Starting work just prior to the first meeting of the day. Deciding to get dressed or being a sleepy head depending on whether its an audio or a video meeting.
But then being there when your mum wants you to shut the gas after two whistles of the cooker or your nephew wants the Bua to feed him and you oblige, so honestly, the conundrum is real and the choice is a dilemma.
After 2 years of settling into the new normal, all of us have created the best fit routine for ourselves, the boundaries have blurred, the calls go on till 12:00 a.m. and beyond in case of escalations but then the feeling of being safe from “Covid -19 a.k.a. corona”, the warm and fuzzy feeling of being home surrounded by family, the feeling of taking a 30 minutes break when you feel like it, the feeling of working on your own pace yet being productive is ethereal.
I understand the corporate pressures building up to get the employees back to the workplace but a few quintessential questions remain?
- Does the company want all the employees to return? If yes, why?
- Are roles like UX designers, alliances, researchers et el need interactions with the larger set?
- Aren’t video calls on teams enough to fulfill the social itch?
- With the global teams and global collaboration the only way to succeed, what purpose would a physical meeting of half the team fulfill while the other half in some part of the world would again be on teams/zoom/meet or some such communication media..
These are important questions that are required to be answered as a large number of attritions are suddenly becoming a norm due to this conundrum of WFH or WFO. Not only do people from smaller cities want to stay back in their hometowns but people from big cities are dreading the daily drudgery of 3 hours on the road for their commute to the office and back home.
I honestly feel that the decisions by the corporate houses in this regard need to be more practical with due diligence being placed on the role of the employees that may be required and also when they are required. If the work is going on smoothly for the last 2 years it will still continue to do so but yes where a meeting is required, it should happen but to facilitate that do we really need all employees in the office at all times irrespective of how far they are from their base locations and whether their work warrants such meetings…. Just thinking aloud…. any thoughts anyone???
