The future of remote working is nearly secured. Thanks to the hybrid work environment that allows workers to plan ahead and collaborate in shared office spaces as needed, the balance of flexibility to stay in control of one’s day is unhindered while getting together to speed up the pace of projects flies supreme. For the IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) and knowledge workers in India, the future of remote working is already here and holds the promise of staying true.
Happier workers enjoying a better work-life balance while working from home is not a dream sold to those with rose-tinted notions of the future of remote working; the average working professional in India shaves off at least 90-117 minutes in the form of commute time saved. This is why it is less than surprising that 74% of workers in India are keen on keeping up the promise of remote working in the future. A co-working space provider, Awfis, puts the average savings per month for Indian professionals at Rs.5520 per month. LinkedIn posted 5x more remote work positions in 2021 than in 2020 and moves based on remote jobs so that people can live in the suburbs or tier-II and tier-III cities and towns are now common. On a lighter note, embarrassment or awkwardness at running into coworkers families while video conferencing is in progress has also gone down, with these times turning into opportunities of bonding for teams.
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Like all meanders of change, this future of remote working revolution knocking at the doorstep of India Inc.’s present has caused a switch to digitalization and technology. Particular winners have been HR tech stacks, marketing automation providers, and video conferencing applications like Zoom. Countless productivity and collaboration applications like Notion, Rock, Trello, and Figma have risen to the challenge to make the future of remote working a working reality in the present.
Each of the frameworks of an organization – Tech and HR – which were hygiene factors in the former world of work have now become mainstays. Almost no sphere of the functioning of an organization is impacted by technology. Information Technology has made it possible for remote work to include file sharing, shareable rich media, data security and storage, and unprecedented networking possibilities. This sweep of change alone was not the changemaker behind the future of remote working, though. Technological advancement affects other functions of the organization such as Compliance & Legal, Information Systems, Human Resource Management and offers staggering possibilities in the realm of Human Capital Management. The common faculty in all these areas is the role of an HR professional which has been transformed forever.
The tools at the fingertips of the HR professionals of today in order to get the most out of the future of remote work are:
Mindset shift: Forward-looking HR professionals should not treat the future of remote work as a passing trend. This is not a case of waiting till it is over but a chance to embrace a new and powerful work culture, not just a trend.
Payroll and attendance packages: With the help of SaaS tools that log and store attendance and shift hour data on their own platforms or on the cloud, manual attendance taking, logging of leaves, and linking this to pay is made easy. HR can leverage these tools to automate administrative tasks of the workforce wherever they’re placed.
Competency development: The future prospects of an organization depend on the skills HR identifies as crucial. These inputs are invaluable ahead of recruitment and workforce planning. Survey-taking and competency mapping become seamless with HR tech software.
Better employee engagement: With employees feeling heard through surveys and their hygiene needs being taken care of through intuitive employee portal interfaces, engagement takes a turn for the better. Line managers and people managers can focus on actual development.
Artificial Intelligence to guide decision-making: Prime among the modern tech array is AI which crunches available data and offers productive solutions for the future. The applications for AI in Operations Management, Inventory and Supply Chain Management, Human Resource Development, and Performance Management, among others, are many.
These metrics are nearly unchanged in their effectiveness even when the future of remote work becomes an established reality. Welfare measures for employees in the new world of work are a confluence of HR policy, tech-use, and a work culture homogenized over these shifting goalposts. Indian employers are poised to make the best of these factors in a changing climate.
References:
- Tech, HR, and the Future of Remote Work|Talent Culture – HR Technology|Jori Hamilton|June 29, 2021
- 74% Indian workers keen on flexible remote working: Microsoft Work Trend Index|Livemint| June 10, 2021
- Average Indian saving almost two hours of commute time while working from home: Survey| Faizan Haidar|ET Bureau| Sept 01, 2020
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