[Hells Bells]

People often devolve the whole idea of WFH to "how much one is still earning, how much one no longer pays rent, one can talk over Teams at click of a button" etc. It would be interesting to revisit these individuals 15 years from now and assess how much have they grown professionally (hand to heart). I know that when I hire, I assess the ability to work and navigate across people very seriously. There is a distinct capability difference with individuals who have entered professional set up during COVID era.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

...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).

Can add this to the list : Husband makes Rs 14 crore profit in stock trading by eavesdropping on wife’s WFH calls

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by DudeWithaFiat

Major companies (in India and abroad) use the product in SaaS model and on-premise. The company handles lots of sensitive data of their SaaS customers. I believe its true for almost all SaaS companies.

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. So it is service.

My company software works in both modes. In some cases we absolutely have no access to customer installation, we don't even know in which countries it is installed. But we also run our software in SaaS mode for certain other customers.

[warrioraks]

For most companies in tech sector, infosec and privacy are not the primary drivers for abandoning wfh strategy.

It is a combination of multiple things and would vary from organization to organization, infosec being really low on the priority considering most are enforcing a hybrid model.

Mostly it is about empty offices, moon-lighting, employee productivity concerns and cost cutting through forced attrition. On top of this, there is another aspect to consider, that is company culture. It's a fact that Covid time saw a lot of hiring in tech. This led to headcounts swelling with a majority of new employees spending no in-person time with their team members or within the four walls of the company office. This on the face of it is a forcing function to cultural change within companies.

The work from office mandates are a way of company top bosses to resist this change and take back things to pre-pandemic ways. What better time to reclaim ground now when it's an employers market and employees have very little choice but to comply.

[DudeWithaFiat]

Originally Posted by Samurai

SaaS stands for Software as a Service. So it is service.

My company software works in both modes. In some cases we absolutely have no access to customer installation, we don't even know in which countries it is installed. But we also run our software in SaaS mode for certain other customers.

Sorry for moving away from the main topic of this thread, but generally in IT, companies whose product is served through a SaaS model are known as also known as product companies. Ex: Facebook is SaaS, but is Meta/Facebook a service company?

[skrao]

We are a 105 member company which went completely remote. It's been 3 years since we did this. We have actually grown in revenue and number of customers.

There are many challenges that crop up. While tech and customer side of it is addressed effectively the biggest challenge is in culture. By design we were anyway remote as far as our American customers were concerned, data privacy, support time, availability etc are solved problems with good investments in tech.

Most of our employees are in their first jobs out of college and do miss out on building friendships, hanging out and many nurturing aspects of an office. For seniors, monitoring, continued zoom meetings where subtle cues of body language, mannerisms and other non verbal communication are missing and documentation are big challenges.

[Mystic]

Originally Posted by Mystic

Working from home is not a new concept that came into limelight because of the recent pandemic.

Originally Posted by Mystic

WFH is permitted for a maximum period of one year for up to only 50% of employees by Govt for SEZ. This has been exempted up to end of 2023 by Government due to Pandemic for 100% employees . All IT companies in SEZ cannot bypass this law and allow 100% employees for WFH starting from January 1, 2024. We need to wait and watch for new direction from Govt by end of this year.

It has been a while I expressed my thoughts. I see a lot of people for and against WFH. Let us see the laws in India and USA as per my previous posts. May be my knowledge is limited in this area of laws and I welcome lawyers in this forum specialising in labor law can advise here.

I am retired now after 3.5 decades in IT and can only share my thoughts on historical experiences. To tell you frankly, I would go by the law and not go by personal convenience wrt WFH. I can never forget when I asked my boss in USA on how many hours I need to report on time sheet as I am usually working 12 hour days. The response from an employee of one of the most respected audit firms in the world in which I was working in those days is “ Report the hours you have worked and work ONLY for the hours you have reported “. When I work in countries where it is 4 day working week, we were asked to WFH from hotel on Fridays because the labor law where my pay roll is processed has 5 day week.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by DudeWithaFiat

Sorry for moving away from the main topic of this thread, but generally in IT, companies whose product is served through a SaaS model are known as also known as product companies. Ex: Facebook is SaaS, but is Meta/Facebook a service company?

I agree there is some amount of dilution in the concept of product thanks to SaaS. However, internally it creates two different organizations within a company. Take AWS, people who build the products and APIs are essentially a product org, but those who deploy and manage the renting of those products/APIs are services org. It takes very different kind of engineers to man these roles. The former won't need access to customer data, while the latter may.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by skrao

Most of our employees are in their first jobs out of college and do miss out on building friendships, hanging out and many nurturing aspects of an office. For seniors, monitoring, continued zoom meetings where subtle cues of body language, mannerisms and other non verbal communication are missing and documentation are big challenges.

These are very valid concerns and not just employees who are new to the workforce, but experienced employees too miss out on the personal connect that helps make them more effective at the job.

Some things that have helped our teams:

* Get used to calling- zoom, phone, chat. Often we've seen that there is more hesitation to call someone when working remote, than to walk over in an office setup. People feel odd to call multiple times for short discussions but don't feel odd to walk over to other desks multiple times. This is natural, but just a mindset change. Call when necessary, as many times as needed.

* A few in-person meetings are necessary, especially for new team members. We've seen that after even one in-person meet, the quality of remote interactions goes up dramatically. There are several ways to do this. Let teams decide the frequency. Lots of co-working spaces offer great rates for periodic visits.

Finally, it might help to speak with specific employees who are having issues with a remote setup. Get a sense of what are the blockers and if there is a trend. Will make it easier to solve those.

Hope this helps.

[Gaur]

Originally Posted by am1m

* Get used to calling- zoom, phone, chat. Often we've seen that there is more hesitation to call someone when working remote, than to walk over in an office setup. People feel odd to call multiple times for short discussions but don't feel odd to walk over to other desks multiple times. This is natural, but just a mindset change. Call when necessary, as many times as needed.

In my team we have a 2hr team call in morning and evening each, everyone connects to this call and pretends as if we are working in cubicle next to each other.

Just unmute yourself ask someone a question, share screen and back to mute, when i joined my current organization 1.5yrs back i initially found it a bit weird but later i realized it works well, once i got to know the people we also started having regulars small chats as well, you can drop out if some work and connect back to the same call.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Gaur

In my team we have a 2hr team call in morning and evening each, everyone connects to this call and pretends as if we are working in cubicle next to each other.

If that works for your team, then great. But generally, what we've seen is longer calls don't work great in a remote setup, especially longer calls with several people on at the same time. I'm not sure most people will enjoy having headphones on for 2 hours at a stretch, and not everyone might have the luxury of a separate room in a remote setup.

But again, if that's what works for your team, then good.

What might work better is 'core available hours' for a team, where everyone is online during that time, not necessarily on a active call, but available to answer calls/chat messages. Teams can discuss and decide those timings.

[Gaur]

Originally Posted by am1m

What might work better is 'core available hours' for a team, where everyone is online during that time, not necessarily on a active call, but available to answer calls/chat messages. Teams can discuss and decide those timings.

In my team its almost kind of what you mentioned, we don't have a mandatory requirement to join this call, you can connect disconnect at your wish.

At times when we are working on something critical, some brainstorming needed or some release we have higher participation else its on a need basis mainly.

Some times we just join is say hi, do a casual chat and dial off but anyways we are moving to 2/3 days in office now so things will change again.

[am1m]

I had a question about the kind of IT work that cannot be done on laptops and is desktop-specific.

I know there are high end graphics/movie editing, 3D modelling tasks that are best done on high-performance workstations. And I assume there are high-security defence/manufacturing industries where the work has to be done on-site only and those probably use desktops. Anything else I might have missed?

[DDIS_RE650]

Originally Posted by am1m

If that works for your team, then great. But generally, what we've seen is longer calls don't work great in a remote setup, especially longer calls with several people on at the same time. I'm not sure most people will enjoy having headphones on for 2 hours at a stretch, and not everyone might have the luxury of a separate room in a remote setup.

I feel, if it is not a financial burden, remote working employees must arrange a comfortable setup at home.

[Gsynch]

Originally Posted by am1m

I had a question about the kind of IT work that cannot be done on laptops and is desktop-specific.

AI model training with mediocre size model? I guess, that can't be done on a Laptop unless it's a heavy duty, purpose built like Alienware with RTX 4090.