How Work from Home (WFH) affect IT industry in COVID-19
The world is suffering from Covid-19 on all aspects of life, all countries and all industries are affected by it. No one is certain about how much and how long the impact of the pandemic will last and when will economy will be stable. Many businesses are broken down with this situation all over the world.
All enterprises are experiencing challenges in getting new clients, renegotiating existing contracts, and diminishing revenues. Most of the industries will have to re-design their revenue model and cash flows and cost-cutting strategies.
During lockdown in India, IT companies started work from home (WFH) and they have found advantages and disadvantages of WFH. During the first, second, and third lockdown more than 95% of IT employees have started working from home. Among them, 35% are coming from small-town or villages and 65% are from home in metros. However, the percentage of working from home in metros were reduced after unlock 1. The reason behind this is all the employees who were stuck in the lockdown somehow started managing to move to their hometown.
During this time, the surprising things came out in the IT industry and Accupoint Software Solutions have also experienced the same. We have noticed that the WFH model is providing smooth operation without compromising the quality of work and clients are also started adopting the same as well. Some business owners are considering WFH as a permanent solution for their companies and reducing staff from 25-30% to office and the rest of them working from home. This WFH model has many advantages and some disadvantages as well.
Advantages:
Continuity of Work – You get a productivity event staying home, lockdown or any other situation doesn’t really affect those who are using the WFH model.
Reduced Operating Cost – We have observed that operative cost has been reduced from both ends, company, and employees. For example, if you are a company then you can reduce cost in daily expenses which include tea-coffee, snacks, electricity, internet, etc and if you are an employee you can save money on transportation, real estate, going out with colleagues during break time or after office hours and spend unnecessary money, etc.
Infrastructure – Many organizations those who have adopted the WFH model for a longer period of time have moved to small offices that save their rent and other expenses.
Better Work Culture – This WFH of COVID-19 Situation has created better work culture introducing more female staff and employees from different locations even from overseas as well. This would give a chance to someone to think broad and learn new things.
Disadvantages:
Productivity – It is very obvious that if you work from home your productivity gets reduced. There are some limitations in the WFM model, for example
- Internet issues today especially in India most of the employees can’t afford to get broadband so they have to use the mobile networks as some of the companies are providing a good amount of daily internet quota.
- Disturbance from the other members in the home especially those who have kids experience disturbance in their work and frequently and can’t focus on work.
- In case the computer or any other gadget that employee is using for work gets broken then work gets stopped because if you work at the office all these problems can easily be handled and gets fixed quicker.
- As we know IT companies are relying on internet and internet connectivity is the major issue that everyone is suffering during the COVID-19 situation. As mentioned above the majority of employees are using mobile data for work, it gets exhausted some time and they can’t give you products that you are expecting.
Layoff – As an impact of pandemic situations many companies lost their client or they stopped getting further projects, because of that many employees were terminated or sent on leave without pay (LWP) for uncertain periods of time because of COVID-19 situation. Those who lost their jobs had to join other companies at negotiable salaries. This is however not a disadvantage of work from home, it’s rather an impact of COVID-19.
Absence of Working in a Team – When you work as a team you get more help and you get more output. When someone if working from home by him/herself can’t get proper help and because of that productivity gets reduced as well. If you work at an office in a team you get help from your senior very easily, you can have some time to discuss flow and plan to avoid potential bugs and errors.
