Work From Home Will Continue For 50% Companies; But 15% Less Salary For Permanent WFH Employees (Survey Results)

Remote work is not going anywhere anytime soon despite a relative lull in Covid cases in the country. 

The Current Trend

Several companies in India are now hiring for permanent work-from-home roles.

More than 50% of companies are keeping the remote working option open for employees.

This data comes from a recent survey conducted by CIEL HR exclusively for ET.

Executives at several companies say that the flexible working model is here to stay in the long run.

Salary Differentiation

Mondelez and Tata Steel are hiring for permanent work-from-home (WFH) roles, while Maruti Suzuki, Mphasis and ITC are either taking a location-flexible approach for certain roles or embracing a partial remote working model.

As per the latter, employees come to the office for a couple of days in a week.

Aditya Mishra, chief executive of CIEL HR Services said that existing employees working from home are receiving the same salary as before. 

However, those newly hired for remote roles on a permanent basis are getting 15% lower salaries.

Mondelez India

10% of new hires are likely to be in permanent remote roles.

Shilpa Vaid, head, HR at Mondelez India, said that the company is considering remote roles in a limited manner.

It wants to adopt practices and policies that best serve both the business and its employees.

There is no pay differentiation between work from office and remote employees at the company. 

Tata Steel

Tata Steel introduced an ‘Agile Working Model’ policy Back in December 2020

As part of it, job positions were classified into two categories-

Absolute work from home: The employee can work from any location in India

Flexi work from home: Officers who have to be based out of a particular location can work from home for unlimited days in a year.

A company spokesperson said that they are hiring people for both kinds of positions and there is no salary differentiation based on employees’ availability at office.

Maruti Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki has taken on a hybrid work model based on flexibility. 

It believes that productivity and efficiency can be maintained irrespective of the work location of the employee.

The survey found that over 50% of employees in the mid-sized IT/ITeS, banking, infrastructure, retail, chemical, logistics, and manufacturing sectors are working from offices.

But the biggest takeaway is that most big firms are providing permanent WFH to certain roles while others are working on a hybrid model.