Article: 75% organizations still wary about implementing work-from-home option

Culture

75% organizations still wary about implementing work-from-home option

This comes at a time when there are debates on various platforms about how flexi-time, WFH are retention tools for working mothers.
75% organizations still wary about implementing work-from-home option

Nearly 60% organizations do not have a formal work-from-home policy. Incidentally, 75% employers are not even comfortable with this idea, whereas 90% employees are keen on having such a policy at work. This was revealed in a TimesJobs survey including over 1,110 employees and over 800 employers. This metric suggests about the ambiguity that still lies when it comes to knowing what your employees want. 

Work-from-home is one of the prime workplace debates lately and WFH, and flexi-time are two major retention tools for working mothers. With changing times, companies still need to create a culture of transparency and also trust employees to work whenever they want. The outcome should be work productivity and not how much time you spend in the organization.

To survive in today’s competitive business world, companies need to transform from a command & control culture to an empower & enhance value system. Organizations that are able to create a culture that nurtures agile, high-performance teams will thrive. Policies such as work-from-home and flexi-working create a culture of trust and communicate the company’s belief in its high-performance employees, which in turn attracts and retains top talent,” says Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, TimesJobs.

Productivity & Performance Mismatch

The study further reveals that 70% employers still believe that productivity gets hampered when employees work from home.Contrary to this, 44% employees feel that work-from-home helps boost productivity. Also, 80% organizations say no to work-from-home as they say that they have no tracking mechanisms to manage workforce who opt for it.

Risks outweigh Benefits

About 40% employers see a lack of control as the biggest challenge of a work-from-home policy, reveals the TimesJobs survey. Resistance from top management in acceptance and implementation of the work-from-home strategy is another big challenge cited by 30% surveyed organizations. Lack of employee interest for work-from-home options is stated as a deterrent by 5% employers.

Though, employers do believe that work-from-home has certain benefits. Nearly 40% see its biggest impact in boosting their employer brand, 30% see it as useful in curbing attrition and another 30% find it beneficial in improving employee productivity which is further linked to organizational output and profitability.

Roles are not Suitable

Moreover, 25% employers believe that there are many jobs, which are not conducive to work-from-home arrangements and that is a hindrance in creating such a policy. Of these employers, 42% say work-from-home doesn’t work well in IT related areas of work, 40% say it is not practical for logistics, supply chain management, and procurement roles and another 40% find it is not useful in customer service functions. 

Nearly 35% employers feel the work-from-home policy is unsuitable for those working in hospitality and related domains, another 35% say this for administrative profiles, 30% feel it doesn’t work well for engineering profile, 25% see it inappropriate for accounting and finance roles. For 10% work-from-home is useless for sales, business development roles and for 5% it is irrelevant for those working in entertainment, media and journalism segments.

Future Outlook

Amid all these reservations about work-from-home, while 35% organizations are unsure of adopting any such policy in near future, 40% employers say they already have a work-from-home policy but they will modify it to suit the changing needs of employees. And 25% organization plan to implement this policy in near future. 

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Topics: Culture, Employee Engagement

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