Hyderabad: Even as IT companies are keen to call back employees to office, a major constraint faced is of employees being out of Hyderabad.
In its Future Work Models survey, Hyderabad Software Employees Association (Hysea) points out that out of the six lakh workforce present in the city, nearly two lakh are outside Hyderabad.
“About 91 per cent of the companies have more than 25 per cent of their workforce operating from outside Hyderabad. A significant 53 per cent of companies have more than 40 per cent of their workforce operating from outside Hyderabad. This is more prevalent among the medium/large/very large (MLVL) companies with the average being greater than 40 per cent,” survey says.
In addition, 74 per cent of the respondents said that the risk of Covid cases at work is another constraint for getting employees back to office. Other factors include availability of safe accommodation, schools reopening, concerns about third wave and many employees not being fully vaccinated.
Current WFO
Small companies (with less than 500 employees) have made the first move in getting employees back to office with nearly 20 per cent companies saying they already have more than 20 per cent staff work from office (WFO). However, 76 per cent of all companies have less than 9 per cent WFO and among MLVL, it is less than 5 per cent.
Work model
The survey states that an overwhelming 70 per cent of the companies feel hybrid will be the future work model and this is true for all size companies and in line with the global trends. In this, a hybrid model based on rotation and with partial week WFH and partial week WFO will be preferred. About 33 per cent of positions have been converted to permanent remote, which emphasises the hybrid model.
Back to office
The survey pointed out that majority of the companies (about 73 per cent) are looking at getting minimum 10 per cent and maximum 50 per cent of employees back in office by December 2021. The remaining 27 per cent will be operating with less than 10 per cent of employees working from office by the same time period.
However, the MLVL companies, about 60 per cent, are looking at getting more than 20 per cent and in some cases, more than half of their employees back to office by end of 2021. “By end of March 2022, 79 per cent of companies will have anywhere from 30 per cent to 90 per cent employees WFO. It translates to minimum 2 lakh and maximum 5 lakh employees back in offices by March 2022,” says the report.
Vaccination
More than 84 per cent companies said they expect employees to have taken at least one vaccination dose before they can return to offices. Approximately 36 per cent of companies have at least 50 per cent to 75 per cent employees vaccinated.
While 63 per cent companies see no challenges in getting employees fully vaccinated, 25 per cent feel vaccine availability to be a challenge and 12 per cent see vaccine hesitancy among employees. Nearly 25 per cent of Hysea members responded to the survey and the companies that responded represent nearly 25 per cent of the IT/ITeS population in Hyderabad.