As India reels under the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, many states have imposed restrictions to curb the spread of the disease and have advised offices, both government and private, to let employees work from home. Earlier this week, the government also reached out to top corporates to consider converting their vacant office buildings into temporary Covid care facilities, according to news agencies.
Nitin Kamath-the founder and CEO of stockbroking platform Zerodha, via his tweets expressed his views on more work from home as well as work from other cities option. He said that his firm is in the process of transitioning as many people as possible so that they can work from home permanently.
He has pitched permanent work from home as a measure that will enable people to move out of larger cities and this in turn could be an answer to many of India’s problems. In a series of tweets on Saturday, Kamath said that while working together to help in the current situation, the only long-term fix is for as many of us to move away from large cities. And now is probably the right time to work towards it. The silver lining is that more people are open than ever to move out of large cities. According to him along with a much better-quality life, many other issues will become less bothering. His tweet said, large cities are choking & will continue to break down every time we face some problems.
Today it is COVID, it could be water shortages, pollution, floods, etc. Moving to smaller towns & villages will also create livelihoods there & reduce carbon footprint. Bloomberg, the news agency quoted opinion of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. According to him many firms across the world have adopted the work from home norm with the ability to hire engineers far from the social media giant’s main offices and has opened up new pools of talent. Many employees will continue working remotely after the pandemic — at salaries more in line with their new locations. As per a study conducted by Bloomberg, the remote working makes people more productive. The work-from-home boom will lift productivity in the US economy by 5%, mostly because of savings in commuting time. The rapid adoption of new technology amid the pandemic will offer lasting economic gains, helping to boost sluggish productivity that has long weighed on global growth.
Calling the new arrangement “an aberration”, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief executive officer David Solomon said that the investment bank will correct as quickly as possible, arguing that it’s especially crucial for new recruits to absorb the Wall Street culture, Bloomberg reported.
Smrutirekha Bhoi