Welcome back! 50% of IT workforce to return to offices by July, say experts

Hyderabad: The future of work after COVID-19 will be flexible, opined panelists at a panel discussion on "Transitioning Workspace Forward" organised as part of the 8th FM Summit 2022 organised by Telangana Facility Management Council (TFMC). By July 2022, more than 50% of the IT workforce is likely to be back in offices, said industry leaders at the event.

The panel discussion was moderated by Vijay Rangineni, CEO, IT Investments at the government of Telangana. It is time to get back to work, in person, face to face, he said initiating the panel discussion. "But what are the roadblocks? Where do we stand today?" he asked the panelists.

Workplaces are social interactive places where employees meet their colleagues and collaborate, learn, and work together on shared goals, said Vinay Agarwal, the global head (business HR) at Tech Mahindra and one of the panelists. Offices are "Me Time, We Time" places of the workforce, he added.

"None of the two world wars impacted the world as much as the pandemic has. It is a quite challenging task to bring the entire workforce back to the office immediately…it has to be done in a phased manner," he said.

Challenges in getting people back to offices

Hundred per cent work from home (WFH) work style will not work. It has to be a hybrid model, said panelist C.N Rao, the CFO of Divyashree NSL Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd.

Having experienced work from home, work from anywhere, and work remotely – which saves time, energy, effort in travel, and cost – motivating employees to come back may be a huge challenge, he said but was hopeful that the old style of work will be reinstated after July this year.

Mamatha Madireddy, MD & Centre Director of HSBC Global Service Centre said WFH was something new to the banking industry. But, suddenly 100% of our employees started working from home. Now the return to offices will happen in a phased manner.

Kiran Pendyala said just like how firms practice "ease of business" they have to focus on "ease of coming back to office". The employees are willing to return to offices but they need to be reassured about the safety of the workplace.

15% of IT workforce operating from offices

C.N Rao added that IT employees are slowly returning to work. From 1% sometime last year now 20% are back to work.

Krishna Yedula, the secretary-general of SCSC and VP at Virtusa, said 15% of the IT workforce is operating from offices as of now and the number will go up in the next couple of months. By July, it will be well over 50%.

Nearly seven lakh work in the IT industry and another three lakh support staff work behind them. BPOs, KPOs, product companies, and small and SMEs are almost 100% back to work. It is only the question of large service companies.

Satyanarayana Mathala, the president of TSFMC, said facility management is a profession that improves business and lives by ensuring functionality, comfort, safety, and efficiency of the built environment and is practiced by 25 million people around the world. "We are fully geared up to welcome the IT workforce back to offices. From reception to washrooms, all are touchless and safe environments to work from," he said.