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After over a month of the nationwide lockdown, India Inc’s top leaders say they are beginning to consider a work from home or hybrid model even for the long term

- Naandika Tripathi and Pankti Mehta Kadakia

At 6.30 pm sharp, just as everyone else is winding up work, Damini Nair, 27, logs in to her desktop. Nair, who works with a global IT services major, has been working the graveyard shift from home for over a month. She does miss going to an office, though, considering she is working 11 hours now versus the regular nine because of poor internet connectivity.

Like Nair, most of the country has rapidly moved to working from home full time, thanks to the nationwide lockdown. The mode of work has received mixed reactions— some, like Nair, find it difficult to adapt to without adequate infrastructure; while others, saving on commute time and finding themselves more efficient, can no longer imagine sitting at an office desk all day.

A majority of companies—especially those in the tech space—are actively considering how this months-long transition might change the way they work in the long term. For instance, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) recently said that as much as 75 percent of their 3.5 lakh employees will work from home by 2025. “We call this philosophy 25x25, which means only 25 percent of our employees may have to be in office to ensure that 100 percent are productive,” N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer and executive director, TCS, said while addressing a press conference on quarterly earnings recently.

We spoke to corporate India’s prominent leaders to get their views on whether the work from home (WFH) culture is here to stay at their companies, and whether India is prepared to embrace it. Here’s what they had to say.