[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by sunilch

This is likely to get balanced by removal of the Conveyance Allowance or other form of travel benefits that some employees get. None the less, a good initiative.

Has any company made cuts in car lease policies?

My company has not made any announcements yet, but I fully expect it to go fully remote with voluntary WFO.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Agree, this makes sense as well. If someone is WFH, she need not spend on daily travel. Travel that might be needed once a month / quarter might be considered business expense, and not taxable in the hand of employee.

Similarly, HRA will be reduced as well. Not sure if this is meaningful for new tax regime as well.

HRA is different. You can still be living on rent and it can still be valid/justified. Though there can be some adjustments or as you said this is not applicable to the new regime and hence they may leave it as it is.

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Has any company made cuts in car lease policies?

My company has not made any announcements yet, but I fully expect it to go fully remote with voluntary WFO.

No one has made any changes and they won't until this is official from the IT department / FM. We are looking at the possibility of a reshuffle from the FM.

[Samurai]

Recently I was talking to a friend from a well known non-IT MNC. His top management proposed that it is time for employees of certain divisions to return to office. Nearly half the staff threatened to quit, most of them in middle management. The top management dropped the idea like a hot potato. No one can afford any more attrition at this time.

That made me think... would I want to go full time to office? I don't think that is an option any more. My team is all spread around various towns, it would be very hard to pick a location where everyone will be agreeing to come on a daily basis. And it would be silly to lose valuable team members just because we want to see them in person every day. These days I meet my team once in a month or two, and we use that time just socializing and not working.

And this has become a big problem for sales people who need face-to-face with new customers. Since everyone is working from home, meeting decision makers has become impossible. No decision maker wants to be in their office just to meet a new vendor. And you can't visit the home of the decision maker... Sales people have to figure out this puzzle somehow.

The new reality is slowly settling in... who knows where we are going from here.

[Bhupesh_2628]

WFH = Working from home
WFO = Working from office

Pandemic will continue for few years more.

In current scenario, the moment everything becomes normal for a couple of months (i.e. lower number of cases, decrease in positivity rate etc.), organizations believe that we should start calling workforce in increments.

What they do not understand is, that situation wouldn't remain normal for long. An 'n' wave can happen anytime.
And there you have anti-vaxxers who simply want to derail vaccination progress. Its a long pandemic that will go on.

IMO, decision-makers in the organizations should keep WFH premanently for the time being till pandemic settles down majorly if not completely. I've seen WFH successful in many cases.

Flexibility of WFH far outweighs WFO in IT industry.

Team get-togethers can happen more often virtually. Even meeting in-person once a while won't harm. Going to office for a few times in a month is inevitable for few folks, for instance availability of device constraints etc. I guess everyone will be fine with this approach but not with calling out for WFO at these times.

Management eventually had to turn down their own decision to work from office.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Samurai

become a big problem for sales people who need face-to-face with new customers.

Yes, big problem for sales. Similarly, big problems for legal + consultancy. E.g.: Lawyers can't visit client premises to review sensitive documents.

Hope new ways of working will emerge to handle these problems. For example: till 2019 ; no one would have believed that 10 Billion+ IPOs can happen without travel and without physical paperwork. This is now routine.

[am1m]

Working out of an office today after nearly 2 years. Just for today since I needed to get some hardware upgraded (the company I work for has already adopted a remote work model). The traffic is crazy to put it mildly. At the very least it's back to pre-pandemic levels. And most offices haven't even opened yet, neither have schools! Must have been exposed to more dust, stress and pollution today than I have been over the past 6 months, working away from Bangalore. Can't believe I used to think this was normal. And pretty stupid to normalize this, when it's not really required for the kind of IT jobs that can be done remote!

Hope I never have to go back to an office in Bangalore again! (Unless it's near a metro station!)

Originally Posted by subraiyr

With all this in mind, the biggest decision I took was to review my formal wear.

haha, I know what you mean. Had to dust off my formal shoes, they even had some strange growth on them after 2 years of non-use. Not that I miss them at all anyway!

Originally Posted by subraiyr

I do miss those days of getting to the office, meeting the team, ideating, and having conversations with other functions.

Yeah, I'm not averse to the idea of working together with my team. But the traffic in Bangalore, especially around the IT parks just negates every positive thing about going in to work.

[subraiyr]

Ahh the good old office. Before the pandemic started our office closed down and we were to move to a larger office. Consolidation of office space was critical to cost-cutting. And then Covid hit us. 2 years on, our old office has closed down and there is no news about the new office space. Our management is risk-averse to a large degree and therefore RTO (Return to Office) is not spoken much.

My role involves working across the globe and typically customers are outside of India. Pre Covid, I used to work out of a suitcase. Last 2 years our delivery model has changed to a remote or hybrid model. So there is not much in terms of travel. I don't see any RTO soon and it might take more than a year for RTO. Again, the model will change wherein teams will be called in for 1 day in the office per week or fortnight. Beyond that I don't see WFO happening at all in my industry and in my firm especially

With all this in mind, the biggest decision I took was to review my formal wear. Due to my constant travel, I had a whole bunch of formal wear. I have now downsized it to just a couple of trousers and 4 formal shirts. That is all I have for workwear now. The rest was happily taken away by my maid's son whose office has asked him to come back to work. The idea of dressing for work has taken such a backseat. I now am in the phase of decluttering my belongings and moving to a minimalistic living (at least from a clothes and accessories perspective). I do miss those days of getting to the office, meeting the team, ideating, and having conversations with other functions.

[adisan]

Top IT firms keen on employees returning to office (CNBC TV18 report)

The Bengaluru-based IT service provider Wipro has asked managers and above to return by March 3, 2022. However, they will be called for two days a week for now. Cognizant is planning to open its offices for a voluntary return to premises by April. Infosys will open its offices to a larger share of employees in the next 3-4 months even as it expects to continue with the hybrid work model through 2022.

TCS has brought a remote working policy that constitutes work from the base location even when you have opted for WFH.TCS expects its staff to work from home in their “depute” locations even as it expects remote working to continue, according to internal emails sent to associates.

[Jaguar]

I have a feeling that there is a push from the central govt to get back to offices. Until a couple of weeks ago, there was no talk of RTO, but suddenly most companies have sent out circulars to RTO in the next 2-3 months, hybrid or otherwise. There is no reason for all of them to decide simultaneously unless there has been some order.

[TSEA]

IT Companies have started sending emails recommending (not mandating) PMs to have one day (a week) on-campus connect with their teams.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

I have a feeling that there is a push from the central govt to get back to offices.

As far as I know, there is no such mandate from the government. Usually governments don't get to tell private companies how to operate unless the latter is using government resources. However, there is a push within top managements to come back to normal corporate life. That is because "covid-19" as an excuse for delaying everything is getting long in the tooth. Companies have frozen/delayed/put-off many initiatives and plans since two years, and it is severely affecting the bottom line and future of the companies.

While IT folks can work from home, sales people can't. No matter how much IT folks puff themselves up, sales is the real life blood of any business. You can't meet new people and make deals if decision makers sit at home. Yes, even the customers are suffering because they are not meeting vendors/partners face-to-face.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by TSEA

IT Companies have started sending emails recommending (not mandating) PMs to have one day (a week) on-campus connect with their teams.

Smart, they know if they mandate a return to office at this point, there will be attrition. So gradually make it palatable- weekly connect, team outing, get-back-in-touch, etc etc. HR must be elated planning these things. Wonder if "ethnic day" will make a comeback Finally, business as usual sometime mid this year I think.

[pandey.jai]

Originally Posted by am1m

Wonder if "ethnic day" will make a comeback

Urgh! Two years went by without that BS and I’m definitely not looking forward for the next one.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by am1m

Smart, they know if they mandate a return to office at this point, there will be attrition.

There is attrition anyway, even in companies that had home office work as a norm prior to pandemic. So there is not a big difference.

If you have to work in a team, it is better off in office for those interactions, things get moving quickly. Long Teams calls are just a pain in the ear.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by narayans80

There is attrition anyway...So there is not a big difference.

No doubt, attrition has always been on the higher side in Indian IT companies. But there is an undeniable higher attrition risk these days.

One, the push for digitization of processes have required several startups and companies to hire people immediately and they are willing to pay whatever it takes, so the job market for certain roles and experience levels is good.

Second, can see a lot of smaller companies clearly advertising for remote roles on Linkedin. A whole lot more than before. Just last week I got pinged by a former colleague who was hired to ramp up a new team at a startup and he is looking to hire for multiple positions. The same guy 3 years ago (at a different company) was dead against hiring from outside the city where the company was based because of the whole "in-person interactions are better" thing. But now he simply can't afford to care where people are based.

Third, there is an undeniable section of folks who do not want to return to office or at least don't want to go in everyday. (I'm one of them, have already left a job that didn't make their work from home plans clear, to shift to one that offered a remote role. And I'm ready to quit without a job if asked to go back to commuting anywhere on the ORR!) From friends and former colleagues, have heard of companies that have had to backtrack on their return to work plans because of negative sentiment on the part of employees.

I'm not saying there will (or needs to be - what this thread has shown is that different things work for different folks) a massive shift to WFH, but the return to 'all employees in the office everyday' work will also be tricky for companies now.

(Am also obviously not saying WFH will work for every job!)