Information Technology (IT) companies are now hiring students to only ‘Work From Home’ (WFH). Since it is WFH only, the offered salaries to students has been slashed by 35 percent giving companies a dual advantage.
Cashing in on the opportunities, students can also take on multiple positions in different firms and even run their start-up while being employed as WFH. Approximately 50 to 70 percent jobs offered to engineers are now WFH based, as shared by Dr Rakesh Saxena, director, Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science.
Similar trends are reported by other private technical institutes. On the plus side, most students who were seeking jobs after engineering have received a job offer.
A recent separate survey of firms from the Survey of Business Uncertainty with the Atlanta Federal Reserve and the University of Chicago indicated that the share of working days spent at home is expected to increase fourfold from pre-COVID levels, from 5 percent to 20 percent.
Further, a report from Naukri portal said that employers hiring people to work from homes has increased by 3 times, i.e. 300 percent compared to the time prior to the lockdown.
Hence, the number of people WFH might become the new way of work and employment for present and future generation. To understand its implications, we bring an overall view of the situation with pros and cons, as analysed by experts.
Digital workplace, higher costs or benefits?
Some businesses running offices to conduct their day-to-day tasks in rented places have moved entirely to homes cutting their expenses. Allowing employees to work from home, most industries slashed down salaries as well citing economic fall-down.
Clearly WFH is here to stay at least in some sectors, but the question arises whether industries will consider hiring back employees with salary hike just to do the same work in office?
“In major engineering branches like civil and mechanical, work at site will continue as we resume life, but the major change is seen in CS (computer science) field,” Saxena said. He added that though for employees cost of electricity, system, etc. will increase, benefits are also increasing in proportion.
“Our recently placed students have admitted that WFH has improved their efficiency giving them time to work on other projects as well,” Saxena said.
Start-up saviour & Entrepreneur’s weapon
With no need to sit and wait for clock to tick to 7, employees have become more disciplined and ambitious. “Most people especially recently placed students have begun their career with multiple streams of income, for example, a coder also owns a small grocery shops and can manage both as he was hired on WFH basis,” Dr Ajit Upadhyaya, researcher & marketing expert, said.
He added that WFH is a blessing in disguise for start-ups and entrepreneurs. “Most start-ups pay for offices with their initial funding, which is not entirely a productive investment, WFH is their saviour!” Upadhyaya said.
Work from anywhere, double edged sword
On the other hand, the challenge of managing a team online has its initial hiccups. “Most employees complained of slow internet, power-cuts, etc. while working from home, which hampers productivity and efficiency,” Shawez Shaikh, owner of an IT company said.
However, employees who appreciated the opportunity of WFH and benefits, also surprised their owners with quick deliveries. “Employees can reap benefits of WFH, but providing quality work would be more essential as competition would be stiffer in such cases,” Shaikh said.
He added that competition is stiffer, as employers’ pool of employees has also expanded. “Since employees can work from anywhere, we can hire from anywhere,” Shaikh said.
86% companies to have Digital workplace
A recent survey report showed that 86 percent of the companies surveyed see the digital workplace co-existing with the physical workspace in the future, with 78 percent expecting to increase the amount of remote work conducted.
The report was carried out in conjunction with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, is based on feedback from 1,080 global business leaders, and was conducted in May 2020.
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