[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by mxx

Here is a good article about reason for return to office push.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article...ffice-mandates

In India, the SEZ rules is an additional reason for return to office mandates.

Dear @mxx, Thank you for sharing this article. Went through it.

All, The article is IMHO offering a rather limited and I dare say childish reason for the WFO drive that owners, managers, CEOs, employers wish to exercise 'control' & 'power' & 'show who is the boss'. Without getting into too many personal details I sit on the other side i.e. the employer-shareholder-board member side of the fence in the IT world. The employer, I mean the real employer not the middle management, are genuinely experiencing employees in large numbers cutting corners, slacking off, double dating, and most significantly worsening the cyber security shield of the employer (i.e. the company). And the CEO and the Board who are answerable, with huge personal liabilities, to the Govt, the regulator (where applicable) and most importantly the customer cannot risk weakening the cyber security or data privacy shield to fulfill the WHF desire of some employees.

I can resonate with what Jamie Dimon said in this article - that we get it that you cannot commute 1.5 hours a day but then nobody forces you to work here either. Hybrid can work in small parts in geography & time but once an organization gets bigger than a certain undetermined size hybrid can only work in small doses. Some employees at one organization I am very closely associated with demanded WFH as a right. Our response was become a self-employed consultant and take on the liability of delivery, enjoy a variable income with upsides and downsides and take responsibility and financial penalties of cyber security misses at your end. Certain jobs, in certain situations and for defined periods of time can be done WFH or on a hybrid mode. But as an employer I do not see majority of the jobs as an employee getting done on a permanent or almost permanent WFH mode. Hybrid in a limited form is here to stay for non essential tasks that can be cyber located outside the inner cordon.

Quite likely as Team BHP is an employee heavy forum there will be several who will vehemently disagree with this post. One thing I find missing in this thread is the voice from the other side. Too many assume that WFO is about the employee. It is first about the customer, then about cyber security, then it is about whether it leads to greater productivity/happiness or not.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

...It is first about the customer, then about cyber security, then it is about whether it leads to greater productivity/happiness or not.

Sir, as an employee, I would have hoped the HR talks of "the employee comes first", surveys with questions like "my employer cares for me as a person" etc. are all true. The bottom line as you state is - for a business to be a going concern, the Customer comes first. Whatever needs to be done to retain the customer needs to be done.

I have a query on the cyber threat part. Given that most IT firms (to what I read in media and my personal network) have indicated that hybrid work is here to stay, in such a scenario I fail to understand how working for 3 days in office and 2 days from home (using the same devices) reduces the threat level.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Too many assume that WFO is about the employee. It is first about the customer, then about cyber security, then it is about whether it leads to greater productivity/happiness or not.

If it was about cyber security them why do companies calling people back to office ask them to take laptops back home and connect when required? Companies which do not allow remote work due to cyber security often do not allow any VPN connections from outside or laptops outside office. I know if a couple of such companies here where employees need to leave their laptops at office and if they want to work they have to come into the office.
that said its quite ironic, that the company on forefront of AI revolution which probably has the most to lose if their IP is exposed has a fully flexible WFH policy with individual teams and managers deciding what works best. As for customers, unless the employees are front office facing and greeting customers, I wonder if the purchaser of a chip or software cares whether it was designed in an office or through remote work.
Yes, there are industries where remote work cannot work. But then there are where it can work. As for slackers, slackers will slack everywhere. If a manager cannot identify slackers based on their work output, probably its time for a replacement.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

that the company on forefront of AI revolution which probably has the most to lose if their IP is exposed has a fully flexible WFH policy with individual teams and managers deciding what works best.

Here you are referring to a product company, right?

Product companies don't deal with customer data, so they can make policies without taking customer's infra-sec needs. However, most companies are service companies that deal with customer data, and employees have access to customer's infrastructure. That is when they have to bow down to customer's infra-sec requirements.

When someone connects over VPN from home to their private cloud, should they be allowed to access customer data? It becomes impossible to protect it then.

Convenience and Security are the two extreme ends of this spectrum. Higher convenience comes at the cost of security, and higher security comes at the cost of convenience. And if the customer is demanding higher security and is willing pay for it, the vendor has to deliver it.

[ShreyG]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The employer, I mean the real employer not the middle management, are genuinely experiencing employees in large numbers cutting corners, slacking off, double dating, and most significantly worsening the cyber security shield of the employer (i.e. the company). And the CEO and the Board who are answerable, with huge personal liabilities, to the Govt, the regulator (where applicable) and most importantly the customer cannot risk weakening the cyber security or data privacy shield to fulfill the WHF desire of some employees.

It is first about the customer, then about cyber security, then it is about whether it leads to greater productivity/happiness or not.

Agree to disagree a bit here sir. In the services domain now, the general expectation is logging in post reaching home as well and access the same data that was being accessed from the office network.
If customer centricity and cybersecurity was such a concern, expectations of 12 day work hours (post COVID) would not hold merit. Yes there are odd days when work is heavy and one needs to stretch, but what I experience and hear from my peer group is the expectation to login post 7pm as well and continue because it is now possible.
Slackers. moonlighters etc is something that the middle management and HR should be taking care off. I am a part of middle management and have been able to tackle some of such situations (albeit with some strict techniques) but what's to say a slacker will become an employee of the month if there's WFO.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Here you are referring to a product company, right?

Product companies don't deal with customer data, so they can make policies without taking customer's infra-sec needs. However, most companies are service companies that deal with customer data, and employees have access to customer's infrastructure. That is when they have to bow down to customer's infra-sec requirements..

So people who are being asked to return to office due to security have to leave their laptops in office and are not supposed to work from home?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

So people who are being asked to return to office due to security have to leave their laptops in office and are not supposed to work from home?

Not like that. Different access policies can be applied depending on if the laptop is on the office LAN or connecting remotely via VPN. If the Laptop is on VPN, then the access to customer infra can be disabled. That will limit the employee to certain kind of activities, but not all the activities they can do from office.

[V.Narayan]

WFH vs WFO vs Hybrid is a subject that will never have a clear answer only strongly held positions depending what your stakes are. I don't expect anyone to agree with me nor am I here to convince anyone. I have no illusions of the limits of my debating skills! But if we hold some views passionately it helps to understand the other side otherwise this thread is merely an echo chamber of employees cursing the evil employer.

Originally Posted by whitewing

Sir, as an employee, I would have hoped the HR talks of "the employee comes first", surveys with questions like "my employer cares for me as a person" etc. are all true. The bottom line as you state is - for a business to be a going concern, the Customer comes first. Whatever needs to be done to retain the customer needs to be done.

That is a very good point you raise. Being employee centric is a wider arena than just allowing WFH - fair pay, fair growth opportunities, a decent workplace, a respectful culture, meaty work and so on. When negotiating with a customer the company does not give in to every demand they make. Similarly, when negotiating terms with employees or suppliers of capital {banks, share investors} you don't become a doormat either. It has to be a healthy give and take. Hope this helps. Most halfway decent companies do not want disgruntled employees. Similarly, they do not wish to be held to ransom by a group of employees either.

I have a query on the cyber threat part. Given that most IT firms (to what I read in media and my personal network) have indicated that hybrid work is here to stay, in such a scenario I fail to understand how working for 3 days in office and 2 days from home (using the same devices) reduces the threat level.

I really do not know how others manage it. In organizations I am associated with we work largely with desktops. We were forced by the pandemic to buy hundreds and thousands of laptops and now those have been taken back and sold off. Our nature of work does not support laptops and its inherent risks. I cannot speak for other companies.

Originally Posted by ShreyG

Agree to disagree a bit here sir. In the services domain now, the general expectation is logging in post reaching home as well and access the same data that was being accessed from the office network.
If customer centricity and cybersecurity was such a concern, expectations of 12 day work hours (post COVID) would not hold merit. Yes there are odd days when work is heavy and one needs to stretch, but what I experience and hear from my peer group is the expectation to login post 7pm as well and continue because it is now possible.

Expecting an employee to log in after 7PM is patently incorrect and unhealthy. It reflects poor planning and attitude on part of the team lead/his or her seniors. Too many managers/leaders in India assume this is normal. In my days of running my business I expected and demanded 24/7 availability from my top 5 people especially as air safety & 24/7 operations were involved and they were paid accordingly. But the regular Joe, pilot, engineer did his shift and signed off. In India, The WITCH companies because they earn in $ and their costs are in INR can afford to pay above the national average of like jobs in brick & mortar and that gives them the rope to push their employees around. Unfair but true.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

If it was about cyber security them why do companies calling people back to office ask them to take laptops back home and connect when required?

I don't know. I guess one will have to ask the companies you have in your mind.

[Vishal.R]

Originally Posted by Samurai

However, most companies are service companies that deal with customer data, and employees have access to customer's infrastructure. That is when they have to bow down to customer's infra-sec requirements.

From my experience, for most of the customers, it doesn't make much difference whether a member of an offshore vendor (a typical service company) works from office or home. Anyone working outside of their premises is equally risky for them, unless they have setup an offshore delivery centre (ODC) inside the premises of offshore vendor i.e a designated area with separate access card and different physical security requirements e.g no smartphones etc.

Also Most of the organisations which works with IT service vendors have certain critical functions/operations which they would never outsource.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

We were forced by the pandemic to buy hundreds and thousands of laptops and now those have been taken back and sold off. Our nature of work does not support laptops and its inherent risks. I cannot speak for other companies.

Yes that can perfectly valid case for many companies. If any organisation which directly or indirectly deals with my personal / important data, I would like them to do everything necessary to protect the data. But the point is if a company is OK with Hybrid mode, security can not be a reason against WFH, as per weakest-link-principle

[reignofchaos]

Ours is one of the companies that has continued with WFH flexibility even after the pandemic has ended as these intangibles lead to better employee retention. I checked with my team what they prefer and the majority (~90%) wanted to continue with flexible WFH and ability to come to office when required. We gave up our fixed office spaces as other than the test team, almost no one works from office all the time.

Personally to me this is a huge flexibility and doesn't drain me out daily due to the commute. I'm personally willing to let go an extra 10-15 lacs base pay or RSUs for this. Not that we are paid poorly but after a point extra money no longer motivates me. Flexibility of this sort matters much more.

It is also a big benefit that my manager is located in a different part of the world and isn't breathing down my neck all the time. This actually helps me plan my own work better.

[mally2]

I work for a Aussie Telco and we had flexible working way before the pandemic and were a forerunner of sorts, for us the pandemic hardly affected work as most of us worked 3-4 days from home anyway, Recently I moved roles and that meant taking on Direct reports from the home turf along with ones from India, Apart from SEZ mandates I see no reason why I would every ask any of my DRs to come to office unless its an " All hands" or a senior exec visiting. some of my DRs in international locations have never ever been to the office and they even find the SEZ mandates for our Indian colleagues as weird.

bottom line work has never been affected

[nfs_2_GT]

My personal opinion on WFH/WFO is divided. Although customer data security is a genuine reason for WFO it is not applicable for every role and every company. I believe the organizations which are poor or inefficient in management and planning are the ones pushing for WFO (apart from the ones with genuine concerns). In short organizations with poor culture of ownership and employee responsibility are the one pushing for mandatory WFO policies as according to me efficiency is definitely not the reason behind pushing for WFO.

[achintatri]

Success = Motivation X Opportunity X Ability.

IMHO, WFH has given at least one chance to both the employee and the employer to work on at least one or all of the above variables and define their own success.

If WFH has given an oppprtunity to the employee to take care of certain things for themselves that was not otherwise easy from the office, it has also given an oppprtunity for employer to know how much trustworthy an employee is.

If I have enough autonomy, camradiere and sense of achievement with appreciation, my Vitamin M (motivation) is taken care of.

If my leadership understands my pain areas and ready to work with me to bring me to the required level by either sponsoring my learnings or supporting them in whatever manner they can, my Vitamin A (ability) would be taken care of.

If my leadership is ready to provide me wings in an already speedy career of mine or is ready to help me to chose my own vehicle, my Vitamin O (Opportunity) would be taken care of.

So anyone who has experienced the success based on the above variables after WFH arrangement is definitely going to support the same including me.

BTW, if my office were in Pune, I would have been visiting there at least once in a week just for letting everyone know that I am still alive

Keep working, stay healthy!

[Hells Bells]

My inputs with the whole concept of return to office is less "fact" based (which holds up statistically) and more experience based.

I lead the tech and data function (aka CDO) of a mid sized (3.5B revenue) European CPG firm and am based out of Bangalore. We have globally adopted the hybrid approach and it is predominantly established out of the obvious cost-of-operations efficiency factor. However, I am increasingly seeing that when we really get the teams together in front of each other, the ability to resolve conflicts and aligning the path forward is accelerated by leaps and bounds. I am echoing the opinions that the teams have themselves stated to me.

It needs to be understood that most of my internal IT roles are predominantly about business partnering, architecting, and managing outsourcing vendors. Therefore, these are often not individual-contributor roles. My take away is that such roles are negatively impacted with lack of face time due to the WFH approach. When I hear of team members stress on WFH, my immediate reaction is either they dont appreciate the partnering role they are meant to be delivering, or worse, don't care about making an impact in their role.

Is it the same for all forms of WFH? No, as there are multiple roles in typical services industries and the intent of business partnering is also quite different from a IT services industries perspective.

I am quite curious if my two reactions - lack of understanding of need to partner or lack of intent to make an impact - are the underlying themes which other leaders are also struggling with their teams? Neither of these reactions can be argued without getting into opinions which is why I dont bother trying to define them as a rule or policy which is backed with "facts".

[charanreddy]

Originally Posted by Hells Bells

I lead the tech and data function (aka CDO) of a mid sized (3.5B revenue) European CPG firm and am based out of Bangalore. We have globally adopted the hybrid approach and it is predominantly established out of the obvious cost-of-operations efficiency factor. However, I am increasingly seeing that when we really get the teams together in front of each other, the ability to resolve conflicts and aligning the path forward is accelerated by leaps and bounds. I am echoing the opinions that the teams have themselves stated to me.

I am quite curious if my two reactions - lack of understanding of need to partner or lack of intent to make an impact - are the underlying themes which other leaders are also struggling with their teams? Neither of these reactions can be argued without getting into opinions which is why I dont bother trying to define them as a rule or policy which is backed with "facts".

My experience / job profile is similar to yours except I lean in on the analytics and data science consulting for a major US based e commerce company for its Europe business.

+1. A big reason why we don’t see traction is that a lot of time is wasted in setting up formal meeting which are often after a few days. This mounts up and work which should been resolved end to end in a week takes like 3 weeks or more.


I echo on your identified areas of focus , more on lack of intent to make an impact. Employees feel that they are a small cog in the big wheel while most big bussiness ideas start in the minds of 1 person especially those who consider the companies challenges an active problem they need to work on holistically. As folks stuck with the same problem, We need to catch up





We are one of those ‘product’ MNCs that has mandated 3 days a week policy. Rationale from leaders was around higher productivity when multiple smart ppl from diverse departments meet and get things done. I have noticed it too. In WFH days, I had to set up meetings with every one I needed to liaise with and if it was a senior person then the meeting use to take multiple days to Happen. Calendars where blocked all the time and one can’t find a quiet period to work or talk to other folks. With back to office I am seeing the above happen and I can attest myself the benefits. I have caught my VP / GM multiple times at the water cooler / walking on the floor and a quick 5 minute conversation resolves so many issues and creates clarity. To this at scale with 1000s of employees , who are on zoom and mostly not paying attention is hard. To V.V.Narayan’s point , some infosec issues can be controlled too with WFO though it is won’t account for all the use cases. For a country MD / GM especially in Europe or in a sensitive industry like banking / insurance faces significant fines and jail time for mistakes of employees, so it is easy to understand why they wish to take precautions.

Also being a manager I see people who talk about employee satisfaction fail to appreciate managers / leaders are employees too with much higher stakes.