India Inc employees will be more satisfied with working from home if organisations improve their options for flexible working hours, asynchronous working, and ergonomic furniture and laptops, finds a new survey.
The survey was conducted by private non-life insurance company ICICI Lombard General Insurance to explore whether employees have embraced the new remote way of working, their levels of satisfaction with it, whether it has helped them work better as they spend less time commuting, and whether they are open to continuing this work style over the long term.
The data finds that 34% of respondents need to spend time on household chores, and an equal number must attend to family members, especially elders. These are prime factors driving dissatisfaction in a WFH scenario. Expectedly, this issue is bigger for female employees (43% respondents to 29% male respondents). Companies need to work out flexible work timings for their employees, keeping in mind the gender-specific aspects.
Three in 10 respondents faced the problem of lack of space at home. Compact furniture that can fit into the current scheme of things could allay this issue to a certain extent. This problem is more prevalent in the smaller towns, indicating that suitable options to procure/purchase may be a challenge in these locations. Companies need to go the extra mile to equip their work force in the smaller towns.
“Even as firms continue to adapt to the new normal, the resulting individual and team issues faced by employees need to be addressed separately. As we transition to ‘Flexiable’ – a work culture that builds employee and team capability to adopt and promote remote working – continuous employee feedback through multiple surveys helps us appreciate the challenges and drivers that help us to build a conducive, enabling, and productive work environment, be it at office, home or from anywhere else,” Jerry Jose, head – human resources,
General Insurance, told ET.
According to data from the survey, WFH/hybrid working is more prevalent in metros. Work from office (WFO) is largely driven by smaller towns. 70% have been working from home or partially from home since March 2020 in metros compared to only 52% in smaller cities. The primary reason for WFO is the company’s mandate and the need felt to be physically present in office.
Further, more than 70% of respondents believed their productivity had remained the same or improved while working from home. In fact, 35% believed that their productivity had somewhat or significantly increased due to WFH.
Difficulties faced while working from home included lack of space at home to work (36%), spending time on household chores (34%), managing family responsibilities (34%), spending time with children at home (31%), and lack of work-life balance (27%).
A hybrid mode (partial WFO, partial WFO) emerges the clear winner with 52% choosing this mode. Among those who prefer hybrid working, 41% prefer working from the office three days a week, while 25% choose two days of office work.
“This study – along with our employee survey insights – have also helped us in shaping a future-ready workplace – providing options for remote working to all employees, strengthening and streamlining our physical infrastructure and technology, setting new work practices for enabling work through meetings, engagements and collaboration across teams and managing performance in a hybrid working environment,” said Jose.
The perceived benefits of hybrid working include being safe from Covid-19 (73%), saving on commuting time (48%), being able to take care of family (46%), better work-life balance (44%), easier collaboration with colleagues (39%), and better productivity while working at office (15%). The key reasons for choosing office work on select days was to attend meetings or to access physical documents at the workplace.
The survey had over 1,000 respondents, with the sample group hailing from a mix of metro and smaller towns, and working in diverse industries such as IT, financial services, telecom, e-commerce, and consumer goods, among others.
