)
How do you view this announcement with respect to the Indian scenario?
The recent announcement by Yahoo! must be viewed from an overall organisational context, rather than being seen from the standpoint of employees alone. Whenever there is a significant transformational change, it is natural for issues to get polarised. In light of attendant issues, many organisations are revisiting how this policy of working at home can be deployed in a win-win manner. Any organisation has its own culture and core belief as to what serves it well, and we need to respect it as long as decisions are not inimical.
Is it fair to hold flexible work arrangements responsible for the current problems that Yahoo! seems to be facing?
Yahoo! may not be the first company to take a rather strong stance on this policy. From what I can recall, in the recent past, organisations like Bank of America, Twitter and Google have made amendments to their 'work from home' policies and are encouraging employees to work from office as much as possible.
Today we're in such a competitive business environment where organisations have to come up with innovative, out-of-the-box products and services to outdo competition. And this is only possible when employees team up together, brainstorm and come up with cutting-edge ideas. This perhaps won't be possible if a handful of the employees are working at office and most are functioning out of their drawing rooms! Monitoring performance has always been a practical constraint too, with cases being reported of employees pursuing multiple vocations, using the flexibility accorded. It would be prudent to understand why an organisation retracts a policy that has been in vogue.
Do flexible work arrangements really result in productivity losses?
Flexible work arrangements come with their own set of implications. Such options give employees the opportunity to work from the comfort of their homes or timing suitable to them. In certain cases, this has helped in enhancing productivity and speed of work. At the same time, research has indicated that in-person interactions help in bolstering innovation and do not deliver the same results when team members are interacting via phone or internet.
Given the wired, connected world we live in, isn't the announcement to ban work from home a little regressive?
From an organisation's perspective, it is important that its employees have the physical connect with the organisation as it is the people of any organisation that define its culture and DNA. From a career development point of view as well, it is important that an employee is connected with peers and supervisors to gain from their collective experience. Organisations have to design governance framework to make sure that the flexible work arrangements don't come in the way of the advantages of physical presence of employees in workplace and that the policy is not misused.
In your view, despite the ban by Yahoo!, is working from home the way for the future?
Work from home is definitely an attractive employee value proposition. Such policies require finding an ideal balance between what organisations expect and what employees prefer to have. In my view, it would be prudent to allow this policy to exist but with caveats built in. Which segment of the population this policy would serve, duration for which it would be permitted and governance around performance which can be tracked efficiently while ensuring that the practice is not misused would be imminent.
Specific to India, work from home arrangement has been well received by the young generation, especially working mothers. Be it our culture or upbringing, working women are expected to serve dual roles -" that of a professional and a home-maker. In such a scenario, organisations are likely to provide the working at home provision to encourage working mothers to balance all fronts.
