News: View: ‘Working From Home’ heralds a more efficient, productive and cost-effective way of post-lockdown working-13-04-2020
Updated On: Apr 13, 2020
In the long run, if we subtract the real estate & transit costs, this is an opportunity, not a challenge.
A few days ago, when a minister’s office called to schedule a video call, I was finally convinced that working from home (WFH) isn’t just a fad, but an idea whose time has come. Is that the only change that Covid-19 seems to have ushered in this pandemic, as well as in the post-pandemic, world of business? I don’t think so.
Events of this magnitude and reach are habit-changing.
Take our business. Customers call when they need to enquire, change something, or complain, for which there are call centres. So, we contract with partners, who hire real estate, create desks with computers and accesories, air-condition and sound-proof the space, and hire people who take calls.
Feeling at Home
During lockdown, with travel to call centres prohibited, employees have been enabled to take customer calls from their homes, with an incremental increase of 5% calls taken a day every day. So, in the ten days from taking no calls, we have moved to taking 50% of earlier number of calls on an average day. I’m sure technology will help us overcome challenges regarding ambient noise, data security, etc. as WFH becomes a habit.
This entails huge cost-savings. In the long run, if we subtract the real estate and office transit costs – and overcome our inherent and rather regressive doubts and suspicions about employees WFH – we are staring at an opportunity, not a challenge. Today, in the middle of lockdown, we’re carrying out three times more WhatsApp-based transactions than we were a day before the lockdown.
We are also thinking of migrating more front-end services from legacy IT platforms that are less flexible and require data centres, towards cloud-based solutions that can handle spikes and ‘change’ requests in hours, instead of days. Even when lockdown is lifted, I see this solution gathering momentum.
Our partners employ skilled people who service our customers. We pay our partners for each act of service they deliver, while they pay their employees a salary that is largely fixed with some incentives for performance. Partners submit their bills after the month is over. These are verified by us, and the partners are paid.
Hence, the partner, in addition to skilled manpower, also needs to invest in a month or two of operating expenses. Going forward, the partners will be paid, on account, for the month, at the end of every month. The point is for them to stay focused on the job they were contracted for.
Creating an ad campaign meant carrying out customer research, going through scripts, protracted negotiations, pre-production meetings, people flying off to Mangaluru or Morocco, hiring editing studios, etc. Five days into the lockdown, we thought of making 10 of our services free for the duration of the lockdown. While business teams got busy provisioning these services, the advertising company WhatsApped us a few scripts, which were finalised over a phone call.
A director was appointed, who directed seven people to take videos on their phones of themselves and their families in their homes, and to forward him the clips. These clips were assembled, a soundtrack slapped on and edited at someone’s home. On Day 3, a 1-minute-long film, costing 20% of what a 30-second film costs in ‘peace time’, was sent to the head of communications for approval. Four days after ideation, the campaign was on-air.
The New Corner Room
There are many more areas that have undergone change, rapidly. Each one is small by itself. Yet collectively, they make a significant impact.
In the weeks that my colleagues and I have spent WFH, we’ve taken more policy decisions than we normally do -- because they were necessary. The financial year has closed, its accounts finalised, and a new financial year has begun. Every individual has been appraised by his manager, and functions have prepared and presented their next year’s plans, with actions and numbers. A day-long monthly business review, with 50-plus participants, is planned – all this without any of us having to hire a cab, drive a car, board a plane, stay in a hotel.
While work has not missed a beat, I have eaten healthier, watched more movies and shows, exercised with greater regularity, and slept longer and sounder. Which leads me to two big conclusions:
One, I’ll work from home one day every week -- aiming for two days during some weeks when face-to-face meetings are not necessary -- after lockdown is lifted.
And two, having experienced it first hand, to use the lockdown as a new benchmark for work. Every time a new process is discussed in the post-Covid future, run this test on it: Will it work in a lockdown? If not, let’s rework till it does.
This may be the beginning of the end of employment as we know it, leading to the core of an organisation shrinking to a handful of people, supported by subject matter experts (SMEs), who could work, on contract, for 3-4 non-competing firms. The simplified processes will make the lives of our customers easier, and create entrepreneurs out of employees. All the while making firms with improved efficiency and cost structure even more competitive.
The writer is MD-CEO, Tata Sky
