Mumbai: While some organisations allowed their employees who travel on Western Line (Virar to Churchgate) to work from home, there were others who issued a diktat to come to office. The others who were forced to resume work, had to take alternate options to reach their offices.
One such employee who was asked to report to work was Molly Yadav who made an effort to travel to her office in Andheri. “My company wanted me to report to office as there was an important meeting. I took a rick from Dahisar to my office. I was stuck in traffic and I reached office but was late for the meeting.” She argues that because her boss reaches office, he expects his employees to be there too. “It is not possible to come to work for some and they don’t understand it,” she added. This points finger at working of some corporate offices.
With changing times, many offices have embraced flexible hours or work from home options. Then there are some organisations who want their employees to be at workplace despite severe conditions. An HR professional, who did not wish to be named, stated when bosses take a call about their team members or employees, the HR professional don’t interfere. She added, “It also depends on the work culture the organisation wants to promote.” There are many organisations who allow not just work from home but flexi-timings too.
According to a recent report by IWG, it stated that more than 53 per cent employees work remotely in India. And this figure is expected to grow further as unprecedented number of businesses are now adopting to a very different working model which works in the favour of companies and its employees.
Meanwhile, Snehal Chavan, an ad professional has a different story to share. “I left home but got stuck so I decided to go back home rather than head to my office in Andheri.” She added my boss permitted me to work from home. “Despite we having a meeting, my boss allowed us to stay home and work from home.” Such models are become simpler to operate mainly due growing technology.
The IWG report also suggested that flexible working not only reduces commuting time but enhances productivity, job satisfaction etc. Highlighting the negative of working from home, Amit Patil, stated, “I did not go to work (on Tuesday) neither did I work from home. I decided not to answer any calls as the whole idea of work from home is vague.” One reason for this is, when you work from home there is not limit to your work hours. One ends up working for long hours, he added.
Akshita Rao, a freelancer, said, “I am working from home as I don’t work for one organisation. But in my previous organisations where I was full-time, my bosses allowed us to work from home in such circumstances. When bosses agreed, HR had no say in it.” Adding to it, Manisha Joshi, who was going to join a company (on Tuesday), said, “I informed the HR that I would not be able to make it to work. Such situation as a new joinee, does not look good on my record, but I had to take care of my safety.”