A pan-India survey by industry body ASSOCHAM has found that the majority of employees who started working from home (WFH) after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and subsequent lockdowns would prefer to continue working from home. The survey—conducted by Primus Partners for the business chamber across eight major cities in the country—says 74 per cent of staff would prefer to continue with some form of work-from-home arrangement even post-lockdown.
The survey also points out how companies have seen the benefit in letting employees to work from home, as it becomes location-agnostic, allowing reduction in operational costs like transport and office premises rental.
One of the main reasons given is the lack of confidence in public transport, even though almost all states have restarted services like buses and metro rail. The survey said 73 per cent of the respondents said they would rather use their own two-wheelers or cars, with only 21 per cent looking at continuing to use public transport. Rise in sales of passenger cars, with 1.97 lakh units being recorded in July 2020, could be seen in this context.
"Technology has enabled the WFH (as) a feasible proposition,” commented ASSOCHAM secretary-general Deepak Sood, adding, “while it is early days to assess how exactly things would pan out, remote working has its own opportunities and even challenges. We need to adjust fast to this paradigm."
For instance, the survey cites the example of an IT firm, which has just recruited more than 100 employees from tier-2 cities like Indore, Bhopal, Vijayawada, Chandigarh and Patna. The company has decided that all new recruits would follow WFH model, opening up new opportunities for tier-2 cities and reducing the civic load on metro cities, according to the survey.
The survey was conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.
