Work From Home-A New Drift In IT Industry, Amidst Covid19 Pandemic

Work from home, Telework, Flexible working or working Remotely from Anywhere is not a new concept in the IT industry. It is there for a very long time where people have been working from their respective countries. However, earlier companies encouraged remote working only for foreign clients. This pandemic has forcefully made companies to experience work from home aspect for themselves.

In response to COVID19 pandemic and in general, Governments across the world are supporting/encouraging work from home in various ways: (USA, India, UK, Australia, Denmark).

We at Nickelfox welcome-Government’s support on work from home and work from anywhere policy. Governments are formulating new guidelines that aim at removing ‘unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions’ for the IT-BPM sector. The new rules aim at providing a strong impetus to the IT industry.

Work from home for some is a blessing while for others it’s been difficult to maintain work life balance. Some prefer it better than commuting while others feel due to untimely calls and lack of trust from managers they are not able to spare time for themselves.

Therefore, there is a need for laws & policies to spread out ground rules in favour of both the parties.

However, we at Nickelfox believe that work from home is an interesting approach which brings Work to Worker instead of bringing Worker to Work. The idea is to create a space that can balance both comfort and productivity. Anticipating a lock-down due to rising COVID cases, 2 weeks prior, we pivoted our strategy and started the practice of working from home. It was difficult in the beginning but with right equipment, space and discipline we could easily figure out the right way. Teams were equipped with necessary devices. We made sure teams had good internet speed, power backups to avoid any hick-ups in the work. Necessary, secured software was bought for glitch free communication. In-person meetings were replaced with video and audio calls meetings.

As the saying goes “Change is the only constant” Believing this we could easily mould our efforts as per the situation. Be it business or our daily life, one has to go through change, so why not prepare better? A little flexibility in thoughts and efforts makes it possible to accept change. Our flexible approach helped us through this pandemic. While companies were laying off staff, we were able to hire. We could not meet new joiners in-person but we made the best use of the technology and met them online through video calls.

Working from home during this pandemic has made us all more adaptable, more aware about our strengths and more resourceful. Initially, everybody was juggling between work, household and family duties, but eventually everything was sorted out. People have figured out the right schedule for household work, office work and family time. Families of our staff also provide great support to create a working environment at homes. We are deeply grateful for these behind the scene efforts. Things that seemed impossible and senseless earlier, now makes more sense.

For our team, with working from the comfort of our homes, there is a sense of mental peace and work life balance. We at Nickelfox try our best to aid for a better work-life-balance for our employees. We believe that people perform their best and are most motivated when they are freed from the unnecessary boundaries. Therefore, we measure performance and outcomes instead of keeping time checks and boundaries.

Service is all about providing experience. If you are successful in making this experience more worthwhile and delightful, then things like “how you work”, “from where do you work” does not matter. Our teams were working on remote earlier as well for our offshore clients, with all the remote delivery processes already in place, we just adapted these to our internal communications and coordination, without impacting any of our commitments to our clients.

Though our team longs to see each other and interact face to face, with hope for a near end of the pandemic, we will readily make the best of this new norm of “Work From Home” and keep delivering the best to our clients.