It has been three months, since the country came to a complete standstill. From a small micro businessman to the biggest industrial magnates, everyone pulled down the shutter of their shops, asking employees to work from home.
As time progressed, it appears, the work from home mechanism, has tend to become the new normal, as most of industries especially in the corporate sectors have decided to extend it till end of this year.
Amid the three month long lockdown period, almost every sector have suffered from financial stress as business seemed to have slowed down, if not have stopped. Due to which, they are trying to cut down cost in any way possible.
Rahul Upadhyay, 31, is the owner of a city based start up, which deals with software servicing. Since March, Upadhyay and his team of 15 employees have been working from their homes. In May end, he announced that till end of the current year, they all would be working from home as he has returned the keys of his Powai office, as he was unable to afford the rent.
"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our business became really slow. We were unable to afford the heavy rent and had to recover the investor’s money within two years. Thus we had to give up our office space," said Upadhyay.
"Our work is mainly done with a laptop and an iPad or tablet. We have a Zoom meeting twice a day and then we get going, we keep in touch on WhatsApp groups and it's not that difficult, thus we have decided that atleast till December, we will have to continue working from home to save money," said Upadhyay.
A similar story was shared by Amrita Joshi, a research analyst at MNC. Joshi, stated that her company had notified all employees, that the office won't resume till October this year and if required it will be extended.
"Our management informed us in May that we will be working from home till October. Resuming office spaces costs us a lot of money, thus working from home has become the new methodology of cost cutting," stated Joshi.
Marketing professional, Anahita Khanna who is associated with a renowned e-commerce company also stated that her management have affirmed that office won’t resume before October.
"In Mumbai real estate is expensive, plus the additional expenses of internet, cafeteria and taxes that an organisation needs to pay in order to have an office space are huge. Our office owners have even told us that we might not return to the same office as they may acquire a new place when things get normal," stated Khanna.
Throwing additional light on this, a senior Human Resource official said, "Working from home doesn't require any infrastructure other than an internet connection. While in an office, the whole infrastructure and set-up is required."
"Many of the young employees are not from Mumbai and they stay at PGs paying monthly rents, if they are released they can work from their hometowns and save the money of their rent as well. On the other hand, staying alone in this turbulent times can also be emotionally draining," the HR official added.
