Wary of traffic jams? Take 'work from home' route

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With traffic jams and other commuting related issues causing late arrivals to offices for nearly half of the employees, companies seem to have found a middle path for solving this problem by asking their workers to work from home.

"Companies want results. Whether you come to office everyday or work from home at the end of the day the output matters," the world's top IT services firm IBM's Human Resources Executive Director in India Aquil Busrai said.

Lauding this innovative policy, HR experts believe that amid the ever-growing traffic in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, anyone being spared from travelling would welcome this change, in turn, could also improve their productivity.

In a recent survey conducted by American job website Careerbuilder.com in the US, nearly 40 per cent of employees blamed traffic or long commute for causing their late arrival to the workplace.

Given worse traffic conditions in Indian cities, experts believe this percentage would certainly be higher in the country than the US.

"Rather than wasting time in travelling to work place, employees should utilise the time efficiently. They can be provided with facilities like broadband connections and printers at home," Busrai said.

Even some public sector companies, who are known to have a traditional mindset and are yet to come out with such innovative employee policies, believe that giving people an option to work from home could add value.

Such a work culture can add to the emotional bonding between an organisation and its employees, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) HR Director V C Agrawal said. He, however, added that IOC would not start this practise anytime soon.

British banking giant HSBC's Indian arm would implement the 'work from home' strategy for newly turned mothers who need to be at home with their babies.

According to HSBC India Group Communications Head Malini Thadani, tele-conferencing is a good way for the 'work from home' employees to be in touch with the office.

When asked about the attendance issue, Busrai said, "Who cares? An employee's performance should be calculated on what he delivers, rather than how many hours he spends in office."

IBM India believes in results and the HR department would have to come out of the conventional mind set, he said, adding that HR policies should be flexible and up-to-date.

The careerbuilder.com survey found that about 15 per cent of workers admit coming late to work at least once a week.