Hyderabad: As the news of Covid-19 vaccines is flowing in, top executives are back to the board rooms to chalk out manpower strategy for the post-pandemic scenario.
No doubt, the adoption of technologies and work from home model helped businesses in saving costs during the pandemic, human resource professionals’ see many shortcomings and suggest a hybrid work model for sustaining productivity over the long run.
According to Kiranmai Pendyala, Head of Human Resources, India at Western Digital, working from home permanently has its own disadvantages.
“Besides formal interactions, it is important for employees to engage in informal interactions. Employees working from home are missing out on ‘water cooler conversations’ or ‘corridor talks’ and facing issues like anxiety and depression,” Kiranmai told ETV Bharat.
“Despite extending infrastructural support and reimbursing the costs borne by the employees while working from home, what we realise is that they need in-person interactions. To fill this void, we are looking at the hybrid wok model as an important tool,” she added.
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Kiranmai, who oversaw HR operations in MNCs like AMD and the Intercontinental Exchange, says the hybrid model is a combination of work from home, satellite workspaces, on-site working and co-work spaces.
Some industry experts pointed out that the recent decision of the government permitting information technology companies to allow up to 75% of the staff to work from outside the office will help in operationalising the hybrid work model.
“So, what the hybrid model we are referring to is - employees will work from home and comeback to site or work place at regular intervals so that they can engage with peers and cross-functional teams so that the healthy conversations and healthy state of mind continues,” Kirnanmai concluded.
