Office reimagined: Some new work ways may outlast Covid-19 pandemic

Staggered office days, virtual hiring, temporary bosses could be the new normal

Just as companies were beginning to prepare their offices for the partial or staggered return of their employees, the second Covid wave put paid to all such plans. Now, as they look to a future that is still uncertain, chief human resource officers (CHROs) at various companies as well as HR experts say there is a realisation: That it is time to reimagine the way offices are run; the processes that go into hiring a person; the manner in which goals are set; the expectations from a leader; the policies around leave, employee compensation and performance assessment, and so on.

The pandemic has already busted myths related to working together in an office space and putting in requisite facetime. So, Tata Motors, which transitioned into a hybrid working model in February 2021, will continue with it even beyond the pandemic, says Ravindra Kumar G P, its president and CHRO. “But we also realised that complete remote working has its disadvantages and can make collaboration a challenge. That is why we have asked people to be in office twice a week,” he says. The hybrid model, which was to be rolled out on April 1, will now come into effect after the pandemic.

Others like Mahindra and Mah­in­­dra are studying various aspects of remote working and will firm up a policy in the forthcoming months. Maruti has, meanwhile, left it to the team leaders/managers to decide on the number of days an employee needs to be in office depending on his or her role.

As lockdown restrictions ease, Pepperfry aims to resume work from the office/site for its frontline employees, which primarily consist of studio and supply chain members. Non-frontline employees can continue to work from home till December 2021. “We are also in the process of evaluating a complete remote work model for our employees in the tech team,” says Aditi Pareek, HR head of the Mumbai-headquartered furniture and home décor e-retailer.

“The pandemic has helped us to implement a pilot on the new way to work,” says Mahalakshmi R, director, human res­ou­r­ces, Mondelez India, one of the country’s largest chocolate companies. “As I see it, we will not pivot completely to remote working nor will it be 100 per cent back to office.” It will be a combination of sorts, she says, where some roles will become location-agnostic, while others will require people to be physically present at work.

“Geography will be history,” agr­ees Srinivas Chunduru, founder and director of Mumbai-based management consultancy VANS Skilling & Advisory (VANS Group). He gives the example of a Bengaluru-headquartered Unicorn whose CHRO works out of Mumbai. “He is a gig CHRO, and 90 per cent of his working time is spent on that one company. Companies are no longer looking at one’s location as a constraint,” says Chunduru, adding that even the process of hiring will be a lot quicker. Notice periods, too, will reduce as people are able to identify the right candidate a lot faster, he adds.

The structural changes are already prompting companies to hire gig workers at senior management levels. “If we need the services of experts, their physical location may not be important,” says Ravindra Kumar of Tata Motors. He doesn’t think the hybrid model will have any bearing on the compensation structure or the leave policy. Compen­sation, he adds, is shaped by the tax structure. If the government changes that to, say, simplify taxation, Tata Motors will pass on the benefits to employees, he says.

Chunduru, however, expects the compensation structure to get skewed in favour of variable components as companies will shy away from making up­front commitments for fi­x­ed emoluments. “Com­p­anies that had a very small component of variable pay in their salary structure are contacting us to rework the whole thing,” he says. Also, evaluation methods based on operational excellence, balance score card, rapid Six Sigma (work faster with fewer mistakes) will be ad­opted more widely, he adds. So far, only large companies such as General Electric (GE) use these models.

The entire employee lifecycle events are now virtual — right from video interviews and predictive asse­ssments (that allow recruiters to evaluate the cognitive abilities and pers­onality traits of a potential employee) in talent selection process, says Rajendra Mehta, CHRO, Welspun India, Mumbai-based textile company and one of the world’s largest terry towel producers. The company has been conducting virtual cultural ori­e­ntations and property walkthro­ughs, real-time performance monitoring and workload distribution, besides communicating with emp­loyees through virtual town halls.

“We have been exploring various digital avenues that can streamline processes, which were earlier defined by in-person interactions, including the hiring and on-boarding of new members,” says Amit Prakash, CHRO of Mumbai-headquartered consumer goods company Marico.

“Hiring virtually has proven to be easier for multiple rounds of interviews, but virtual interactions sometimes do lead to a formal discussion devoid of social conversations that an interviewer can rely on to assess a candidate’s personality,” he says. To overcome this, Marico is using multiple personality and psychometric tools to assess a candidate both for the job profile and for traits critical to Marico’s culture and ethos.

Once hired, there is the challenge of getting the person to assimilate and become part of the team and the larger organisation, something that would happen naturally if one were going to office. “So, we have adopted a ‘Buddy’ system, where a new member is assigned to someone in office who helps them with their first few days as well as connecting with members across the organisation,” says Prakash. The new employees are also given access to an AI-based listening tool, Amber, to share their feedback at various stages.

Prakash says Marico will continue to follow a competitive remuneration approach and at the same time, “depending on market and business needs, tweak the remuneration structure or related policies so that it is relevant, contextual and at the same time competitive with the market”. The company’s annual performance management cycle has been restructured across all geographies to ensure employees are able to map the right goals and targets as the economies begin to recover from the impact of Covid. “This would ensure enhanced incentive earnings for our members while achieving key organisation outcomes,” he adds.

Pareek of Pepperfry says the company has just closed and announced its annual promotions, increments and appraisals and has also tweaked its leave policy. “The policy enables members who have completed three years at the organisation to take paid leave for a month. This was to be availed of within a year of becoming eligible,” says Pareek. “But we have extended the period for all eligible members whose leaves are lapsing, and they can now avail of them any time until December 2022.”

The pandemic has thrown never-before-imagined challenges for companies. As they work their way around them, they find that some of these new ways might be worth adopting.

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