[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

With Indian IT companies, on the one hand, given the nature of the customer contracts the employers want to have a large number of bright young energetic folks sitting on the bench and/or sub-optimally employed and getting frustrated.

This is not just due to contracts or the nature of the IT services industry. Many a time, you have egoistic managers unwilling to share their idle resources even with different teams within the same project. Have seen them invent mundane tasks to show the employee as busy and end up frustrating everyone involved.

Originally Posted by Theyota

The junior honcho in his WFH comfort zone whose responsibility it was to implement the change had asked my team members to provide him a slot on a weekday between 10 AM to 5 PM India time. This is a comical request for a person in manufacturing. We were not going to shutdown 150 million Euro factory so that this clown can enjoy his 0.5 hours of non standard hours. The standard operating procedure for all such changes is off shift hours or holidays. Personally, deep down, it hurt my pride a little bit, because I would like my country people also to be known as flexible and ambitious as the people in the country where I work in. The colleagues where I work, including women (both white and blue collar) volunteer to sleep in factories for weeks during many COVID lockdowns to keep core processes running.

The bolded part is what gets onto my nerves. What is the issue if a person performs all the tasks expected as per their employment contract but is unwilling to be flexible? How many employers are flexible when it comes to things like notice period? And what if a person is content with their current job/position? People have ambitions other than growing up in the org chart and most individual contributors fall under that category.

I see this a lot from Indian managers, especially the ones sitting abroad. They seem oblivious to the issues like traffic and bureaucracy that the average Indian endures on a day-to-day basis which can affect the mental state and the productivity of an employee. Never will you see them asking even a junior "white" person to stretch or be flexible. More often than not, they themselves will not be available outside of their regular working hours. All this flexibility is expected only from Asians.

PS: Sorry for the rant.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

Very rightly said sir, but sadly that's not the case here - I had to let go of some juniors because they refused to come into the office and always found reasons to avoid work during WFH. (No power, No internet, Computer problems, headache, Not well, )

Fair enough- in my mind not being consistently online and available to work for days together without a valid reason while working remote is the same as not coming in to the office for days together without a valid reason while working from an office and should be subject to the same company regulations.

Originally Posted by abhi.modi05

The organization found out from PF statements, that entries were made from employers other than Wipro.

Wow, and they didn't think they would get caught?!

[iskandariya]

Originally Posted by am1m

Fair enough- in my mind not being consistently online and available to work for days together without a valid reason while working remote is the same as not coming in to the office for days together without a valid reason while working from an office and should be subject to the same company regulations.



Wow, and they didn't think they would get caught?!

In all fairness, it is wrong to the company, but these associates would have gained invaluable knowledge which they wouldn't have otherwise and be sure they are setting their path in freelancing.

EPF or drawing PF was novice mistake, but it is for their betterment and companies loss in unable to provide equally challenging environment. As in the other place also they were WFH only. Hence the environment and its ability to quench the thirst in a determinant.

Also, I have found that ratio of Bad Lemon 1% or even less in my Account.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by abhi.modi05

The organization found out from PF statements, that entries were made from employers other than Wipro.

Yes, Employer (usually HR that manages PF enrolment etc) can see complete history by UAN. E.g. : If an employee had 2 jobs at the same time in past; this will show up during hiring.

They can also see all other employers that are linked to UAN. From EPFO docs :

Q.12 Can employer search UAN of other establishments?
A.12 Yes, employer can search UAN of other establishments by selecting an
option ‘Search UAN’ in the UAN Menu using either Member ID or UAN.

[vishnurp99]

WFH is not for everybody. Every profession/vertical/company will need to take their call on this.

Just wanted to contribute my 2 cents about WFH & the moon lighting connection specifically in the software tech/product industry. Moonlighting has nothing to do with WFH. It's an integrity/engagement issue which sometimes point to a dysfunctional work culture/incentive structure but not always. If moonlighting happens at scale, obviously the impacted companies need to look at their HR, management & incentive structures. In software tech industry, a person could moonlight from his/her office desk too if he/she wants to.

Now about WFH specifically, in the software product & tech industry, you typically work with people spread across the world. You need to have the ability to influence and work along/ideate well with people who are not in the same room/country/time zone as you. Your daily/weekly team rituals typically allows the Product managers/Scrum masters/Operation managers to have good visibility into the velocity of the work. In my experience, development & operations team can work well remotely if they have good communication & articulation skills and a good laptop/internet with zoom/hangout calls.

Finally I don't think WFH means that you never meet people in person. It just means that you meet them may be once a month or maybe once a quarter. To get that personal connect going, it may be useful to hangout together out of office rather than in office too . Also you will always have those meetings where you want to be in person. For eg : if I am meeting with a client CXO or one of our senior leader with whom I don't interact on a regular basis, I would like to be there in person if possible.

So I believe WFH/greater flexibility is going to be the norm atleast in the Software/tech/product industries. It's especially advantageous for a country like India where Tier 2/3 cities are much more habitable than Tier 1 cities and most of your clients are actually sitting out of India.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by m8002?

Instead of moonlighting, why don't these employees just go freelancing and work with 5 or 10 companies at once? They get to be their own boss as well in the process.

Running an one man business in software is extremely hard in India.

Originally Posted by m8002?

But just can't fathom being on the payroll of 2 companies who are competitors.

Even I can't fathom that. Moonlighting doesn't mean being on full time payroll of two companies. You can be on the payroll of only one company in India. The other has to be on a contract basis, with much lesser duration.

Listen guys, I think there is a confusion here. Many here are thinking of moonlighting as a second 8 hour job with another company during the same 10am-6pm time. That is highly unethical, and I do not condone that. There is no way to do justice to two 8 hours jobs, no matter how much Red Bull you can chug, and even if you do it one after the other. If all these IT giants are talking about 8 hour 2nd job, then I agree with them. That is cheating, and total misuse of WFH.

Moonlighting means working when the moon is up, which is working late at night. My understanding of moonlighting is this one, where people work 2-3 hours after getting off from their primary job. When I heard PF from two companies, I realised we are talking about different things.

Typical moonlighters don't take up work with hard deadlines, and they work on contract basis on the 2nd job. They work on it whenever possible and never mix it with their primary job. And they never work more than 10-15 hours a week on it. Most people can work 40h + 15h without affecting the efficiency. My previous company routinely worked with moonlighters from multiple countries, so I have worked with moonlighters who were very professional. Their work is often measured by result and not by hours. They complete the work when they can, and not when you want it. Some did it for additional money, but many did it for challenging/interesting work.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Listen guys, I think there is a confusion here. Many here are thinking of moonlighting as a second 8 hour job with another company during the same 10am-6pm time. That is highly unethical, and I do not condone that. There is no way to do justice to two 8 hours jobs, no matter how much Red Bull you can chug, and even if you do it one after the other.

There is a whole sub-culture of two jobs now. Like any other culture it has its norms. Like :

1. Always buy different hardware (Laptop / Phone) for each job
2. Always keep both of them on (and your user online) during "Daytime"
3. Respond to slack / urgent emails in minutes
4. Find projects / Teams where there is not much load
5. Lingo : OE, J1 , J2, J3

https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/

Some gems from there :

I work in tech, I'm not OE yet, but I'm gearing up to be in the next 3-5 months. About 3 weeks ago I realised one of my day-to-day work items could be automated. This work item typically involves 4-8 tasks. Each task takes between 10 and 30min to complete. I'm given enough of these work items in a week that they account for 20-50% of my workload.

I started OE when I took a new job with J2 and had an obligation to J1 for a bonus payback if I left. Well now well in I’m juggling the load well and am not sure if/when I’ll leave J1.

J2 just switched benefits providers and now had the same dental and life provider as J1. Is there a risk that I’ll flag in the provider’s system and they’ll share that back to J1 and J2?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

1. Always buy different hardware (Laptop / Phone) for each job
2. Always keep both of them on (and your user online) during "Daytime"
3. Respond to slack / urgent emails in minutes
4. Find projects / Teams where there is not much load
5. Lingo : OE, J1 , J2, J3

Wow, this is very different from moonlighting. This is overemployment (OE), as they rightly call it. I wish they call it with the correct name, and not malign moonlighting.

This is very easy to detect in India. The PF UAN can be associated with only one employer's PF account number. When both employers try to pay PF, only one will succeed and the other will discover the problem.

[Theyota]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

The bolded part is what gets onto my nerves. What is the issue if a person performs all the tasks expected as per their employment contract but is unwilling to be flexible? How many employers are flexible when it comes to things like notice period? And what if a person is content with their current job/position? People have ambitions other than growing up in the org chart and most individual contributors fall under that category.

If a person expects notice period or compensation from employer before getting laid off, then employer has every right to ask for a notice period if employee want's to resign? Almost all big companies paid their employees when people sat and barely did anything during peak days of COVID. Isn't that flexibility from an employer. I don't know what fulfillment of employment contract you are talking about. I don't know of employment contracts in tech industry that say we will make you work on only particular days at particular time.

I see this a lot from Indian managers, especially the ones sitting abroad. They seem oblivious to the issues like traffic and bureaucracy that the average Indian endures on a day-to-day basis which can affect the mental state and the productivity of an employee. Never will you see them asking even a junior "white" person to stretch or be flexible. More often than not, they themselves will not be available outside of their regular working hours. All this flexibility is expected only from Asians.

It is your wrong assumption that only Asians are flexible. I haven't had problem with flexibility in the US. None of the team members except for one super smart colleague was an Indian. There were numerous times when engineers/technicians put in unbelievably long hours. Never had problem finding colleagues to work during weekends or holidays on projects that make sense to be worked on only at that time. There were many instances where we had to force people to go home and sleep as it is unsafe to work beyond certain hours. It was not abnormal to call a person in middle of night, wake them up and ask them to drive 20 miles to come to fix a problem. They did not have to come, many still came. Many times, I had to remind them not come in if they had been drinking the previous evening. The most important thing in the US at least in my experience was the manager too must be hands on, be a frontline guy and be equally flexible.

I will give it to you that it is difficult to get unplanned flexibility in Europe, but it is possible once you gain certain trust. Germany is especially difficult. I have no experience of nordic countries, but I would imagine it is even more difficult there.

[Dry Ice]

Our administration has found a new way to cope with heavy rains when infrastructure starts to crumble - ask people to WFH.

GURUGRAM: In view of heavy rainfall alert issued for on September 23 in Gurugram, the Disaster Management Authority has asked all corporate and private institutions in district to guide their employees to work from home.
The direction has been issued to ease traffic congestion and fast-track the road repair work.

Full report

An old advisory when the city faced similar heavy rains.

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by Theyota

If a person expects notice period or compensation from employer before getting laid off, then employer has every right to ask for a notice period if employee want's to resign? Almost all big companies paid their employees when people sat and barely did anything during peak days of COVID. Isn't that flexibility from an employer. I don't know what fulfillment of employment contract you are talking about. I don't know of employment contracts in tech industry that say we will make you work on only particular days at particular time.

I was talking about employers not being willing to relieve even the people sitting on bench in the name of the notice period. And you got to be kidding when saying that companies paid employees sitting idle. At least in the IT companies that had BCP and DR planned, there was no downtime. The employment contract generally talks about the number of hours/days per week, normal working hours, number of holidays, etc. If someone is expected to work outside of the normally defined hours, it should be treated as an exception and not the company's right.

It is your wrong assumption that only Asians are flexible. I haven't had problem with flexibility in the US. None of the team members except for one super smart colleague was an Indian. There were numerous times when engineers/technicians put in unbelievably long hours. Never had problem finding colleagues to work during weekends or holidays on projects that make sense to be worked on only at that time. There were many instances where we had to force people to go home and sleep as it is unsafe to work beyond certain hours. It was not abnormal to call a person in middle of night, wake them up and ask them to drive 20 miles to come to fix a problem. They did not have to come, many still came. Many times, I had to remind them not come in if they had been drinking the previous evening. The most important thing in the US at least in my experience was the manager too must be hands on, be a frontline guy and be equally flexible.

I am saying that the managers (usually Indians or Asians) expect/force other Asians to be flexible even for non-critical issues whereas it is usually voluntary when it comes to their white counterparts.
Again if the bolded part is happening on a regular basis, there is something wrong with the way the company operates.

[hondafanboy]

"A Microsoft report has revealed that 85 per cent of business leaders say that the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive.

As some organisations use technology to track activity rather than impact, employees lack context on how and why they're being tracked, which can undermine trust and lead to "productivity theatre".

https://in.investing.com/news/produc...rosoft-3354471

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by hondafanboy

"A Microsoft report has revealed that 85 per cent of business leaders say that the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive

Nadella's viewpoint is worth mulling about.





Source: Bloomberg & Inshorts

[Arun Varma]

Another perspective!

The biggest encumbrance for a consistent and effective WFH / Hybrid practice is when you have to do it "at scale". It is very difficult to eke out the margins of performance at scale when you cannot ensure a consistent environment which is very difficult to do WFO.

At an individual level, yes it is easy to make a powerful case for WFH. Small groups of like-minded people, yes, the model holds good. But as you scale up, and add more variables into the mix, the model falls apart. During the pandemic, when everyone was impacted the same way, and against the primary duality of life and death, it was an easy choice in a more level playing field. But now, the scenario is changing. The pandemic is now BAU, attrition is rampant, client demands are skyrocketing and so are the shareholders'. Many parts of the world are staring at a major recession. Under these circumstances, many companies cannot leave anything to chance and revert to tried, tested and proven methods that revolve around WFO.

Add in to the mix, the very high attrition numbers which changes the demographic profile (tenure / performance / conformance) and you have a slippery slope leading to too much variance in output. This variance in output is better controlled WFO for most companies.

Bottom line - Great managers, excellent processes, humane work practices are all fine but when they are not scalable to meet the demands of performance and output, and coupled with rampant attrition, and highly competitive market, many companies don't have much choice but to tighten controls and that means WFO.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Arun Varma

Another perspective!

The biggest encumbrance for a consistent and effective WFH / Hybrid practice is when you have to do it "at scale".
Bottom line - Great managers, excellent processes, humane work practices are all fine but when they are not scalable to meet the demands of performance and output, and coupled with rampant attrition, and highly competitive market, many companies don't have much choice but to tighten controls and that means WFO.

Thank you @Arun Varma for another brilliant post. As often before your posts are balanced and deep in perspective.

What this thread lacks, though some of us have tried to wriggle it in, is that every business story starts with the customer and a product he is willing to pay for followed by an entrepreneur willing to risk capital and effort after which comes the employees, facilities, suppliers, lenders etc. Most employers want satisfied employees but when you have 10,000 you will never have one size fits all and some set of employees will always be unhappy with no matter what policy you put out. And unlike the impression some posts on this thread give the cry for WFH is not universal at least in India.

Some flavour of WFH will now get stitched into the fabric of employer-employee relations and like moving from a 6 day week to a 5-day week, WFH too, within limits, will become a permanent feature. In mid-1980s when then PM Rajiv Gandhi brought in the 5-day week in Govt it created a furore that this will kill productivity. But it eventually didn't.

Even on this thread we are only hearing the perspective on WFH vs WFO of the well-off, car owning, male, IT employee who has facilities & room in his well appointed apartment to practice WFH and someone to cook his food and run his house. And with the security risks & hacking sophistication burgeoning after the Ukraine war and China's recent belligerence I don't see WFH as a permanent solution for the larger companies

In one company I am associated with which employs 4000 we have taken a call to part ways with those who sated that for them it is WFH or bust. And there have been some employees, 82 to be exact, who preferred to quit to follow a 100% WFH model. For larger companies with 50,000 employees doing this gets complicated. But eventually there is enough job hunger in India to fill the gaps left behind by those who opt out in favour of a 100% WFH model.