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Silicon City's Rain Chaos Stirs-Up WFH vs WFO Debate

CIO Insider Team | Wednesday, 7 September, 2022
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As silicon city reels under the rains, with the IT corridor under water and reports of professionals in worst-hit areas hitching rides to offices on tractors, the chaos unleashed has added another angle to the work-from-home versus work-from-office debate.

Abhash Kumar, VP-marketing, HR tech startup Springworks says, “Bengaluru floods brought to the fore challenges that forced work-from-office brings.”

Rains and flooding are temporary, but the bigger point is that organizations claim losses of hundreds of crores when employees are stuck in road/traffic during ‘working hours’, but conveniently ignore the dozens of productive hours lost per week per employee on their daily commute.

This area has around 700-800 companies and nine to ten tech parks and is one of the worst-affected. CEOs and CXOs living in upscale villas and apartments in nearby areas had to be evacuated due to the extreme water logging.

Srikanth Iyer, cofounder, HomeLane, says, “Headquarters in Indiranagar has not been affected, many employees living along the Bellandur-Sarjapur stretch have been. The company issued an advisory to all employees in the city to work from home this week.”

For the majority of companies, hybrid work is the way forward, but in a situation like this, only WFH is possible. We pay extremely high road taxes – among the highest in the country – and yet there is such neglect

“WFH is the answer in times like these, when it is impossible for many to go to work, but it is not the whole solution. People whose power supply has been cut off, or water has gotten inside their homes will naturally not be able to work. The discussion should be around managing the rains better, and how we can live with these extreme weather patterns,” Iyer adds.

Krishna Kumar, CEO, Simplilearn says, “For the majority of companies, hybrid work is the way forward, but in a situation like this, only WFH is possible. We pay extremely high road taxes – among the highest in the country – and yet there is such neglect. Maybe this matter needs central intervention and a higher budget, otherwise nothing will happen.”

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