Days after Bengaluru ITs announced Work From Home (WFH) alternative amid coronavirus threat, few private companies have offered conditions to its employees regarding the WFH system. It is reported that some companies are providing Work From Home only if employees sit in front of a camera for 9 hours. What is the reality behind the scene? Let’s find out.
Work from Home but should follow conditions
The WFH strategy is well established in the IT sector, however, some private companies are facing trust issues regarding their able employees.
As social media claims, a Bengaluru based logistics service provider company was letting its employees WFH only if they operate in front of a camera for 9 hours.
On 17th March, a twitter user alleged that the start-up had threatened employees to follow the order or they will face consequences. The user took to Twitter to express his disbelief.
WFH but keep camera ON for 9 hrs and remain in front of camera otherwise face consequences. WTF @shadowfax_in
— Unicon Baba (@uni_con1) March 17, 2020
In defense
Things appeared to be different when the logistics service provider company issued a clarification on their official Twitter handle terming the allegations as ‘baseless.’
#Shadowfaxcares #IndiaFightsCorona #IndiaFightsCoronavirus pic.twitter.com/IvCpWDoH38
— Shadowfax (@shadowfax_in) March 18, 2020
“There have been some disturbing recent media reports which we assert are completely baseless and misrepresentation of facts. We would like to reiterate that there is no company policy wherein an employee or an individual needs to keep their computer camera on for 9 hours and remain present in front of it while working from home.”
“To keep the business process seamless even in such trying scenario, we have only initiated a pilot for video availability of about 10% of our employees who are in client-facing and delivery partner-facing profiles and need to be available during business hours for various meetings, queries and as a part of their job requirement. As a company, we treat every employee with the utmost respect and value their individuality. At the same time, we are also trying to fulfill our business obligation,” the company explains.
Problems for WFH
Above all, the work from the home strategy is adopted by many in Bengaluru, but at the same time, it was not easy to adopt for the manufacturing sector in the wake of COVID- 19, due to various infrastructure limitations.
“In the case of non-IT sectors, most of the employees work on desktops and organizations have not provided laptops. The tools used to perform business operations are not accessible from outside the network without VPN access,” Sunil C., Head – Specialized Staffing, TeamLease Digital, said.
Coming to the trust issue, various employees have claimed that their companies are too worried about performance and confused about how to tackle them.
“Since the concept is not widely practiced in non-IT sectors, the change may take some time. Managers should trust employees and not call them frequently to check on them,” a private company employee said.
