[IndieGooner]

Originally Posted by Small Bot

I wonder how this panned out.

Were TCS required to invest in infrastructure, cafeteria, staff cabs and seating spaces so on again? Really keen to know this.

And how did they manage to deal with tech issues with that many colleagues on the premises?

Someone I know received the email to be in office for 5 days starting oct 1st but their project management told them to continue as they were (2-3 days/week, 1-2 hours/day). Guess the top management just makes these diktats and it is up to individual project managements to resolve logistics and more importantly handle folks who don't want to be back.

[anandhsub]

Originally Posted by IndieGooner

2-3 days/week, 1-2 hours/day

Sorry, but 1-2 hours a day in office?

Would be spending double the time in commute than at work.

And am sure a good chunk of the time would either go in general chit chat or lunch/ walk/ coffee breaks.

Literally the only reason to come to work seems to be to punch the card.

What a waste of time and energy and other resources.

[chinkara]

Originally Posted by Samurai

[b]

Well, even our firm is implementing RTO + Hybrid. After doing 100% WFH for nearly 4 years, we are missing the advantages of being in the same floor during the workday. As we grow, hiring and training new staff is very hard to do online. Basically, we are locating the office to Manipal where most employees reside. Our hybrid model would be six hours at office, and two hours at home. Since everyone lives within 15 minutes, commute is not a problem.

Hybrid is the way to go. If you are measuring people on deliverables / output, you need not worry about WFH or WFO. If someone is shirking without any impact on work then either his/her role is redundant or he/she is more efficient and doing in 5 hours what his / her colleagues are doing in 8-10 hours.

When I was in Mumbai many a day I would finish my work and walk to Wankhede to watch some cricket at 4. No one questioned (because there was no slippage on deliverables and at times I came to office at 7:30 / 8 to finish work when I wanted to leave at 4).

Fundamentally in any organization, people know (bosses / colleagues / subordinates) who are useful and who is not.

[jomson13]

Originally Posted by anandhsub

Sorry, but 1-2 hours a day in office?

Would be spending double the time in commute than at work.

And am sure a good chunk of the time would either go in general chit chat or lunch/ walk/ coffee breaks.

Literally the only reason to come to work seems to be to punch the card.

What a waste of time and energy and other resources.

Totally agree with you, This is a royal waste of resources.
The TCS office in pune is not capable of handling everyone coming to office at the same time, probably this is the reason that many are yet to receive a formal communication to start coming to office 5 days a week.

The project I am in - team size exceeds seating capacity of the office; this is one of the reason why our team hasn't received a formal communication on this yet.

With the new CEO taking over, he's been undoing a lot of changes brought in by his predecessor.
He started by undoing the changes made to the organization structure, now the WFH status is being changed.
I expect more changes to come.

[Dodge_Viper]

Originally Posted by jomson13

Totally agree with you, This is a royal waste of resources.
The TCS office in pune is not capable of handling everyone coming to office at the same time, probably.

That's why they are building another factory err Sahyadri Park opposite the current office.

We received hybrid model mandate, 3 days a week from unit head and not officially at an organisation level. Hybrid should be the norm going forward. Atleast few days in a week mind will be free from traffic frustration.

[IndieGooner]

Originally Posted by anandhsub

Sorry, but 1-2 hours a day in office?
.

Yup, there will be many who does even less time. These are compromises that middle management allows to keep both sides happy.

[Gaur]

Originally Posted by anandhsub

Sorry, but 1-2 hours a day in office?

My friends brother visits a satellite TCS office close to his house to do this formality, infact he just swipes in, waits maybe 5 minutes and then swipes out and drives back home, he does this 3 days a week and once in a while he visits his team in the main office which is around 25kms from his home.

Works for him as his manager is chill and a big chunk of his team is onshore, may not be soo flexible for others.

But completely, agree its an absolute waste of everything.

[jungleroars]

The same organization announced 25% workforce in office by 2025. They changed the stand in just 1 year. I believe Hybrid is the way to go, besides many employees have relocated/moved to their towns/cities/villages and if not then nearby town/cities during Covid time. Now they are settled out there and if you suddenly ask them to again visit your base branch for 5 days a week, I believe they would start looking for new opportunities in the market.

[am1m]

So what does 'hybrid' mean for most organizations? Obviously some days in office and some days working from home.

But how are the majority of companies working this out? Company-wide mandatory days? Team-wide mandatory days? A fixed number of days a month, spread evenly. Fixed number of days that can be 'served' all at once?

I've heard all these possibilities/combinations and more from my friends who work at different companies. Seems like a maintenance overhead. But then again, perhaps that's what makes middle-management happy. Another 'tracking' Excel sheet to justify their jobs.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by am1m

...again, perhaps that's what makes middle-management happy. Another 'tracking' Excel sheet to justify their jobs.

While it is true there are scenarios that probably make WFO useful, I suspect the reason you mention is what will result in mandates on the WFO :-)

[Dodge_Viper]

Originally Posted by Gaur

My friends brother visits a satellite TCS office close to his house to do this formality, infact he just swipes in, waits maybe 5 minutes and then swipes out and drives back home, he does this 3 days a week and once in a while he visits his team in the main office which is around 25kms from his home.

Isn't there a mandate in almost every organisation to have minimum working hours so as to consider it a full working day?

I need to clock atleast 5 hours (in out) else it is marked as half day and results in loss of pay.

[Gaur]

Originally Posted by Dodge_Viper

Isn't there a mandate in almost every organisation to have minimum working hours so as to consider it a full working day?

I need to clock atleast 5 hours (in out) else it is marked as half day and results in loss of pay.

Some organizations do provide this flexibility as well, including my current one.

I mean we do come back home and login again resuming normal work, leaving office early is just to avoid peak hour traffic.

We can then apply for attendance regularization by selecting the suitable option in the dropdown, it works this way in my company.

Not sure how TCS or others deal with this.

[DiMaGo]

Mine is an interesting story; though I was working in IT for the past 16 years and been staying in Bangalore for the last 19+ years, I had totally and completely avoided the dreaded Silk Board and Outer Ring Road for all these years. But come Nov 2022, I switched jobs to an organization which is situated near Whitefield.
During Joining, I was told that 3 days are mandatory and within those 3 days, I may choose WFH for 1 day. But that soon changed and we were asked to work from office 3 days compulsorily.
Since I stay in a vicinity in which Metro 'may' become operational only from March 2025, I tried various aspects Viz., Public Transport, Office Cab and My Own Transport [Car].
Since office meeting timings often coincided with whichever Office cab I chose or tried to catch a Public Transport, I was forced to commute by my Car.
And after exploring numerous timings of leaving home towards office and Vice Versa, I've found most suitable Office timings to be, hold your breaths, leave home at 6.10 AM -> Reach around 7 AM -> Work till 12.30 PM -> Start back to home at 12.45 PM -> Reach home by 2 PM -> Have Lunch and reconnect from 3 PM -> Continue till 7.30 PM [at least].
The only thing in this is, am unable to give time to my health [absolutely ZERO!!].

Am absolutely not sure, for how long I will be able to carry on like this. And if called to office for 5 days a week, I dont really have any Plan B.

PS: Yes, I had escaped the dreaded Traffic pile up on Sept 25, 2023..!

[V.Narayan]

Screen shot below of something I was reading by McKinsey. Stating something similar to what a lot of members have been writing on this thread that the manager needs to be a leader and not a co-ordinator/administrator. One learns leadership through example, training, inner aptitude and organizational culture that nurtures leadership. Organizations such as the large armies of any major country excel at creating thousands of leaders at the bottom of the pyramid leading 11 men sections or 40 men platoons etc. Our IT /ITeS companies have sadly simply not invested in that kind of effort and it shows.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

...that the manager needs to be a leader and not a co-ordinator/administrator....Our IT /ITeS companies have sadly simply not invested in that kind of effort and it shows.

Sir, glad you have articulated this (and very, very glad to see you back active on the forum after some time!) We've had a big problem in IT for a long time with management. As you obviously know with your long experience, not everyone is suited for people management. But the problem in IT is that it's seen as a natural extension, the next step in one's career. I've said this before, but very often the best programmer/performer on the team becomes the manager. Which doesn't work because the traits that make a good programmer are often diametrically opposite to what make a good people manager! So that person ends up either becoming ineffective or a micromanager. Both with negative consequences for the team.

Second is the services model that really doesn't require much creative or strategic input from the team in India, but just needs a team to efficiently follow whatever the US team designs or architects, at scale. In such a situation, a manager is usually just a 'mailbox', passing on the diktats of the US team to the India team, and of course maintaining some sort of tracking mechanism for number of billable hours (and now, work-from-office days!) So we have a generation of IT folk who think that is "management".

To be fair, all this worked well so far, our companies made money. But for us to make the next leap for Indian IT that so many people are now talking about, we'll need a whole new set of management thinking.