59% employers in India not in favour of 'work from home', says report

With the pandemic disrupting the work-from-office culture, a new survey on Thursday revealed that 59 per cent of employers in India are not in favour of remote working.

According to a survey conducted by job site Indeed, 67 per cent large and 70 per cent mid-size Indian firms, as opposed to their global counterparts (60 per cent large and 34 per cent mid-size), are not in favour of a post-pandemic, remote working set-up.

Even digitally agile startups indicated they will revert to an in-office model post the pandemic with 90 per cent saying they would not like to continue remote working once a solution for the pandemic was in place.

"Remote work has served as an equalizer, pushing companies to reimagine and reorganize their work models, encouraging workers to adapt to new concepts of flexibility and productivity," Sashi Kumar, Managing Director, Indeed India, said in a statement.

More than 45 per cent of employees also said reverse migration is temporary and 50 per cent of employees said they were willing to shift back to a metro from their native place if the job demands it.

They attributed a future return to aspects like availability of work from home (WFH) options (29 per cent) and bringing the pandemic under control (24 per cent), with only 9 per cent saying they will stay on in their native places permanently.

According to the survey, which included 1200 employees and 600 employers, only 32 per cent said they are willing to take any form of pay cut even if it means finding a job in their native place.

The willingness to take a pay cut in order to work from their hometowns decreases with hierarchy -- 88 per cent senior-level employees say they were unwilling to take a pay cut and 50 per cent say they would shift back to a metro if their job demands it.

The pandemic has hit boomers harder than millennials in terms of job prospects and nearly twice as many boomers (44 per cent) than millennials (25 per cent) say it will be difficult to find a job in their native place.

Also, 61 per cent boomers are unwilling to take a pay cut to work from their hometowns.

(With IANS inputs)