Even as the Prime Minister appealed citizens and companies to consider working from home (WFH), companies note that the current hybrid work model helps strike a balance between business needs and managing the West Asia crisis. Employee groups are, however, calling for a clear government advisory on remote work.
While most companies contacted by businessline said they are assessing the PM’s advisory and monitoring the geopolitical situation, they noted that well-established hybrid model and energy-saving measures put in place recently are helping them tackle the crisis.
IT industry body Nasscom said on Monday that companies have already adopted prudent energy management measures across campuses including enabling remote or hybrid work where appropriate and are monitoring the situation and engaging with government. “The technology industry in India continues to operate on well-established hybrid work models, with organisations calibrating work-from-home and in-office arrangements based on role requirements and customer needs,” it said.
An executive in a large technology GCC in Chennai said that they are assessing the advisory but have already taken steps in the last two months to ration energy use in facility management. “Hybrid model will be continued as has been the practise,” the person said.
Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu told businessline that almost all employees of the SaaS firm had started to work from office in recent months, but they will now look to adopt two days of WFH in a week, for now, based on the PM’s appeal.
Others said they were still evaluating the advisory, and stressed that the hybrid model was working well to address the crisis.
However, IT unions have urged government to issue clear directions to companies towards work-from-home (WFH).
“Such an advisory would significantly contribute towards reduction of fuel consumption, traffic congestion, environmental burden, and unnecessary travel while preserving uninterrupted economic activity through digital means,” Harpreet Singh Saluja, President, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), a 7000+ member union, said in a letter to the Ministry of Labour.
Similarly, the Forum for IT Employees (FITE) also urged the Government to issue an official notification allowing WFH wherever possible. “Simply advising people is not enough, because employees do not have the authority to decide WFH policies — companies do. A clear directive is needed to make this effective,” said FITE in a post on X.
Interestingly, Union of IT and ITES Employees (UNITE) went the other way. “The government must stop shifting the burden of global instability onto the Indian workforce through domestic austerity, especially as citizens already struggle with skyrocketing inflation on basic amenities,” Alagunambi Welkin, General Secretary, UNITE said.
Human Resource (HR) experts note that companies are now better prepared to implement flexible work at short notice but do not prefer it as they have spent the last few years getting into the hybrid mode and also fear culture erosion.
Aditya Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services said that a complete return to the Covid-era remote work culture is unlikely. “Most IT companies and startups have already moved towards hybrid models and continue to value in-person collaboration and team engagement through office interactions,” he added.
“From Instahyre’s chats with recruiters, most companies are not moving back to full-time work-from-home models, but many are reassessing rigid return-to-office mandates,” said Sarbojit Mallick, co-founder, Instahyre. Flexibility is no longer a temporary perk, but a strategic factor influencing hiring, employer branding, and long-term talent retention, Mallick added.
However, Neeti Sharma, CEO, Teamlease Digital, warned that one model cannot work for everyone. Most companies today have settled into a balanced 2–3 day office model but not every employee prefers it since many young professionals do not have the physical and digital work infrastructure ideal for work.
“The IT industry should find it relatively easy to respond to appeals to cut down on travel and promote WFH, given that their costs are spiralling, and their own results are severely impacted by AI. However, other industries like consumer, Pharma, BFSI will have challenges to implement these seamlessly,” Xpheno co-founder Kamal Karanth said.