TCS Ends Hybrid Mode: But Are Employees Happy About It?

TCS, the tech titan, has reportedly asked its employees to return to the office from 1st October and put an end to hybrid mode. The company has still not come out with any official announcement but the internal sources suggest that it has officially asked their associates to attend office full time which is 5 days a week instead of three days through internal communication.

As TCS continued hiring throughout and after the pandemic, the firm now feels the need to integrate its personnel and ensure that they are moving forward with the company's operating methods and work culture ethos.

Why Does TCS want to shift its mode of working?

Companies and employees are currently engaged in a conflict about the best working arrangement. Employees prefer to work in hybrid or work-from-home modes because they provide them with more work freedom, whereas organizations are more likely to work from the office mode and emphasize its value for team building.

In wake of these reasons, TCS also wants its teams to return back in the old office environment so that the company can gain positive outcomes out of their employees' potential.

Sources told Dataquest, that TCS is making this move to improve collaboration amongst the teams and employees, internal communication and enhance work efficiency by making employees come to the office five days a week.

 How does hybrid mode attend its peak point?

Since the pandemic hit the world many things changed in people's lives. One of these changes also included the way we work. During the pandemic, it was initially difficult for employees as well as the companies to make a sudden shift to hybrid and remote working arrangements. However, after the shift, a majority of employees globally felt they have been benefitted from the hybrid work arrangement.

With these benefits in hand, it is evident that people will not be comfortable going to the old ways of functioning. Most of the employees do not consider returning to the office as an option for themselves.

Not only do the employees want to continue with hybrid or remote mode but they also wish for several changes that include more flexibility, focus on employee wellness, and work-life balance. In this way, the workplace will be more of a meet-up for employees rather than a place where they are dragged to work every day. It is believed that these practices will improve collaboration between teams and uplift their quality of work. Simply, it will change the way people think about their workspace.

What are the challenges faced by IT companies in the hybrid mode?

It has been seen that IT companies face some obstacles while giving access to professionals working in remote or hybrid setups. These challenges include:

• Network availability: In remote setup, most of the time network connectivity arises as a hurdle for professionals to work with efficiency. It is a crucial factor to ensure internet connectivity for stable and efficient output.

• Collaboration: The value of collaboration in an organization particularly when it comes to digital work is very evident. Companies are more concerned about employee collaboration than they were before the pandemic. Collaboration and teamwork are critical factors for a company, and technology provides people with multiple options to connect and build social connections with each other but still, it cannot match up with personal connection building between people.

• Data Redundancy: One of the key aspects is data redundancy. It is critical for organizations to maintain data availability while mitigating the risk of data loss, regular backup, and recovery of data. Data security is of paramount importance for a company and in this case taking cybersecurity measures like encryption, providing secure remote access and multi-factor authentication becomes crucial.

• Communication: In terms of carrying out seamless communication, a company has to invest a lot in reliable hardware infrastructure, high-speed connectivity, and cybersecurity measures to support seamless interaction while protecting sensitive information shared between teams. Only after taking these measures a company can enable efficient collaboration between the employees and bridge the gap between teams working in a remote arrangement.

• Security risk: Data is an inevitable asset of a company, and in today's time data protection is the core focus for any organization. In such cases, security risks associated with data sharing, accessing cloud services, etc. increase in hybrid or remote setup. In this companies, have to come up with extra precautions to ensure that users are accessing sensitive information so that any unauthorized employee or individual cannot access this sensitive information.

Why do employees want a hybrid mode of work arrangement?

Work culture has definitely changed in the course of time. Hybrid or remote work is a common practice now as it brings some benefits for both the employee and employer. People who have worked in this set believe hybrid work has improved their performance in every area as it helped them to improve their performance, and maintain work-life balance and company culture.

Some of the key benefits employees believe they have  while working in hybrid mode include

• Performance enhancement: People believe a hybrid work culture has improved their work quality, productivity, and skills which were lagging behind in work from office setup.
• Work-life balance: It is evident that employees start saving time in hybrid work which they can spend with their family and loved ones. 
• A report published by Cisco states that "When separately looking at work-life balance, the vast majority of respondents (78.9%) felt this had improved with time away from the office."
• Employees Wellbeing: As an employee gets a balanced lifestyle and efficiency with hybrid mode it automatically reflects on their well-being, Employees grow happier and healthier.
• Financial growth: In hybrid or remote work setups it is also seen that people are also been able to save money over the years. As the expenditures get reduced on key items a good proportion of savings can be done.

Addressing Concerns Due to Elimination of Hybrid Mode

As discussed above employees are comfortable with the hybrid work culture. Employees are even prepared to resign from their positions at a certain company that does not offer work-from-home or mixed mode and switch to another as remote work arrangement has grown in popularity since the post-pandemic.

The global report published by Cisco named Cisco Global Hybrid Work Study 2022 writes"At the pandemic’s outset, commentators worried that remote working would have a debilitating impact on both business and employee performance. Our research shows these fears are largely unfounded: as employees and organizations started to embrace hybrid working over the past two years, six out of 10 (61.4%) believe their quality of work has improved, and a similar number (60.4%) have seen their productivity increase."

"Of course, definitely everyone loves flexibility who doesn't? So everyone likes the hybrid more as I told you the reasons, there are not a lot of reasons like there are so many working married women who have children, they then get more time to spend with their kids if they are working from home. As everyone knows, nobody would love to go five days a week,” a TCS employee said to Dataquest on the condition of anonymity.

"Why would people choose a company that is not providing them flexibility? Of course. People can switch from their present jobs if some other company offers them hybrid or work-from-home mode," said another when asked if they would quit their jobs in TCS after these changes.

"IT companies are very insecure, if they cannot be in hybrid work mode then which industry can be?? this is a leadership issue at IT companies, does not reflect a progressive approach," tweeted Manish Agarwal on X.

"From 1st October  TCS dropping the hybrid work mode. The TCS might face a wholesale resignation from mid-level employees and also the TCS share might face some consequences on the next working...," wrote Nikhil Agarwal on the X platform.

While TCS is being flooded with negative comments on social media platforms and in general there are also some employees working in the company who are prone to the decision.

When Dataquest spoke to TCS employees one of them commented," I am happy to return to office. As a fresher now I will have better opportunities to learn from my leads, and can communicate effectively whenever there's something urgent."

"Apart from that I believe the office gives a better work environment and I function with efficiency in the office," they added.

Conclusion

As TCS pushes its employees to return to the office, it can be seen as a sign that leading IT companies in India may follow the same path and that the work-from-home culture will come to an end in the country. As IT industry aspires to end its struggles of collaboration, efficiency, weak revenue, etc. by bringing back its employees to the office. It will be a site to see how supportive employees are going to be in terms of these decisions.