Post-Covid World: Potential work model of Indian IT services companies
Are distributed small satellite co-working offices going to be the norm for Indian IT services?
Srijan’s experiments with remote offices
At Srijan we have always wanted people to aggregate together at an office. Personally, i was never a fan of #WorkFromHome. However, inspired by Ricardo Semler and his book titled ‘Maverick’, i have always been encouraging and open to experimenting with satellite offices to improving the large city-based work lives of.
Dharmshala
Our first satellite office was in a beautiful small hill town called ‘Dharamshala’ in Himachal Pradesh.
We had to give up our office and move out of Dhramshala because of differences in work style and processes with our leadership team there. And i used to be adamant that we require some leadership to have such remote offices. Hence, even though there were enough of our people wanting to remain and work remotely from there — from another work space — i wanted to move our people to move back to Delhi or in a worst case to Chandigarh — a city 3 hours by train from Delhi.
Goa
Our next serious attempt at having a remote office was in Goa.
We started off with two small apartments in South Goa and about a year later moved to a bigger building in North Goa. We currently have two adjoining building with seating of about 65 people at our North Goa offices.
Most people who work out of Goa have moved to Goa from other parts of India having consciously made lifestyle choices. Goa is working out very well.
I have a feeling that a lot will change in the post-Covid world.
Connaught Place, Gurgaon and NOIDA
On similar lines, to ensure our people do not waste 3–4 hours travelling everyday to-and-fro from work, at Srijan we’ve encouraged satellite offices spread all over Delhi NCR.
We have a large space in Connaught Place. Yes, CP in central Delhi. it is unheard of for IT services companies to be running from CP. We’ve been in this region for about 8–10 years in two stints. Metro connectivity is terrific and brings people from all parts of Delhi NCR mostly within 60–75 mins to office from their homes.
And then we have a very nice office in Gurgaon serving people living in Gurgaon. Recently, we hired space in NOIDA at a business centre. All of this facilitate our people to not travel long distances to work and instead spend time pursuing a better quality of life.
Remote — the new normal
As i was sitting and wondering how the last 5–6 weeks of all Srijanites working from home has been and whether if at all we are going to be back to working from our Delhi NCR offices…
…it occurred to me that perhaps not having offices is going to become the acceptable way of working.
Our (pre-Covid) preference for co-location
We’ve always encouraged these remote offices to offer a better quality of life to our people. However, we’ve always discouraged #workfromhome as a philosophy. In the spirit of Agile Scrum teams we’ve always preferred human contact and teams bonding together while working on projects.
All of these closely held mental models are going to break down now.
The new normal for TCS — 75% remote working
As i was writing this post, my WhatsApp showed me this news of TCS announcing that even after return to normalcy it is going to ask 75% of its ~450,000 employees to work from home (or wherever).
This changes everything. Work from home or work remotely is going to become the new norm for all Indian IT services companies going forward.
How might Indian IT Services work going forward
Certainly NOT 100% work from home
Based on casual conversations with a few Srijanites in Delhi and Mumbai on how they were coping with work from home, i do not believe that #workfromhome will become the new norm. They’re missing meeting — the human connect, the chit-chat over chai.
More business centres in smaller cities
I was listening to a speaker earlier today and got the insight that the engines of IT/ITES growth — Gurgaon, Bangalore, Pune — are built by ‘migrant engineers and managers’.
There will be a surge of them returning back to their home towns with the parents and extended families.
And once the excitement of being with families settles down, they will crave for getting out.
Business centres will find an uptick in smaller cities like Bhopal, Chandigarh, Kochi, others will start emerging. Companies would start hiring small seating spaces for their employees to ‘come to work’.
But we love our Goa office. Are offices like that likely to emerge?
We love our Goa office and the response “in peak traffic, 15 mins” that Avienaash Shiralige, the head of our Goa office, loves to give to people when asked ‘how long it takes for him to get to office’.
My feeling is that our Goa office people may still want to come together at office. And if my assumption is true, then i believe there will be an emergence of small satellite offices in small cities and towns for people of the same company to huddle together. Lifestyle locations such as Goa, Dharamshala, Shillong or Coorg may come into people’s conscious as serious places where they would want to spend a few years working from — especially the younger experimental ones.
Uberisation of business centres : “on-demand business centres”
At the beginning of April, we had already given up 50% of our seating space in Connaught Place to conserve cash. Our thought was that we should retain some seating space for rotating teams who might want to come in for two half-days a week. We were clear we want to our Gurgaon office and NOIDA business centres although we reduced the space temporarily.
Last week i was sitting and wondering what if the new normal becomes totally remote, then should we at Srijan retain spaces for people to come in, just as we have 50% retained in Connaught Place?
It then occurred to me that the Uber-isation of business centres might occur. And as i Googled for “business centre aggregators” i found CoFynd and Oyo Workspaces was doing exactly that.
Whether or not these companies offer on-demand business centres yet or no, they will. Teams will soon be able to book 15 seats for 4-hours at short notices using aggregator apps. More such aggregator-app businesses for co-working spaces will emerge.
More residential office spaces will emerge
Obscure workplace laws in India which currently do not permit IT firms, atleast in major cities, to operate from residential areas will have to change.
More residential apartments will be taken up at low-costs by IT firms to enable their employees to huddle together in well-done up easy-going office spaces for 10–15 people.
Conclusion
Companies such as Srijan are likely to retain all models shared above. I believe most companies will go down this path instead of ‘only work from home’ as the new norm.
Let’s see how we at Srijan move forward.
