The government’s decision to make changes in the ‘work-from-home’ policy is a welcome step, says NASSCOM.

The August 2008 announcement by the Government of India regarding a change in the ‘work-from-home’ policy is expected to transform the IT-BPO landscape, providing a big boost to telecommuting. The IT-BPO industry, along with NASSCOM, has been urging the government to relook at the ‘work-from-home’ policy working towards this.

As per the altered rules, the Other Service Provider (OSP) licence can now be granted to an individual, instead of a new unit, which had to be set up by the organisation earlier. As per NASSCOM estimates, from 20 lakh employees, around 5 per cent employees are availing of the ‘work-from-home’ policy. “The changed policy will lead to an exponential rise in home-agents, though organisations need to address issues like security, level of flexibility and proper training,” comments Raju Bhatnagar, Vice President, NASSCOM.

Driving costs and attrition down with telecommuting

Among the key reasons why organisations embrace telecommuting is to reduce costs and retain valuable talent. A number of companies use the ‘work-from-home’ policy to hire or retain highly qualified agents, who may otherwise leave. The aim is to provide employees with a work-life balance, while reducing costs at the same time. Telecommuting is known to reduce attrition, a major benefit for the IT-BPO sector.

As per NASSCOM, for the ‘work-from-home’ policy to work, the government will have to take the following additional steps:

• Develop appropriate policies for home agents. Some aspects will be common for telecommuting employees and in-office agents (those who work in offices) like email discipline, expense claims, privacy, information security, etc. However, there would be some add-ons that would be needed specifically for home agents
• Create effective mechanisms to provide training on an ongoing basis as well as regular updates which the client or the process requires
• Structure the agent’s workspace at home. The work area would need to be secluded and away from normal household activities/disturbances
• Create new employment practices and engagement models — where agents would move from a monthly salary model to an hourly wage model
• Introduce mechanisms to alert the data centre of the organisation about any changes being made to the computer configuration, etc.
• Introduce methods and metrics for monitoring and tracking the performance of home agents.

At the same time, the changes in the ‘work-from-home’ policy is a positive step for the industry.

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