How Indian startups are jumping onto the work from home bandwagon

Bhavin Turakhia, founder of Flock and cofounder of Zeta

It is hard to avoid news about the spread of Coronavirus globally. Stock markets have dropped, production and supply chains worldwide are affected, and international travel is shutting down.

In such times, keeping a level head is the first step to combating the spread of illnesses like COVID-19 and ensuring that our neighbours and co-workers are safe. The simplest option available right now is to go remote and allow employees to work from home, and many businesses worldwide—big and small—are doing just that.

Coronavirus: An opportunity for startups

While remote work hasn’t yet taken off in a big way here in India going remote is an increasingly popular choice for startups all over the globe. The Coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity for startups in India to experience the benefits of remote work. Plus, if this style of work turns out to be successful within the startup ecosystem in India, we could be looking at wider adoption of the ‘work from home’ model across larger organizations.
Today’s startups hardly ever operate on a 9 to 5 schedule, with a majority of the startup workforce consisting of millennials and ‘Gen Z’ professionals, they show an increasing preference towards workplace flexibility.

According to a survey by Shine.com, Indian millennials don’t want to work within the four walls of their offices anymore—with nearly 60% of respondents saying that maintaining good work-life balance is one of the main reasons. Additionally, a recent Flock survey of 500 professionals in the US found that 91% of workers agreed with measures like working from home to help prevent people from getting sick. And 89% were willing to work from home to help prevent the spread of illness.

In India, working from home is much less common than in the West. Indian workers have mixed reactions to this experiment. Some complain of bosses who don’t trust that their employees will actually work from home; while some are constantly distracted by family members, while others embrace the experience, enjoying improved and increased productivity; with some even reporting improved family lives.

Millions of people across the nation will get the chance to experience days without long hours of travel to their workplace, or the harsh inflexibility of not being able to stay close to home when a family member is unwell. This might be the best chance for a great reset in terms of how we work.

Some employees may be working from home for the first time, which means they will have to understand how to stay on task in a completely new environment that may not lend itself to productivity. But there are ways to deliver results from setting up a good workspace to the way you talk with your team.

As per the Flock survey, 75% of the overall respondents said their company allowed remote work in some capacity. However, analyzing responses by company size, we found that small and medium-sized businesses have not adopted remote work as much as their larger counterparts. Remote work has clearly become the norm within larger companies across India, but smaller companies currently appear less equipped and confident.

Having the right collaboration tools in place is key for startups
As much as 53% of respondents in the Flock survey mentioned that they don’t allow remote work because they do not have the proper tools to enable it. Fortunately, creating a remote work policy and implementing collaboration tools is now easier than ever. Many companies, including a few fully-remote startups, are sharing their tried-and-tested remote work policies, with secure and robust workplace collaboration tools enabling collaboration across geographies and time zones.

I’ve worked remotely—on and off— for several years now. Despite being always on the move, I am always connected with my team. I use platforms like Zoom and Flock to keep a track of my team’s tasks and projects. I have found remote working to have an extremely positive impact without hampering workplace productivity in any manner.

But are all startups prepared to accept the work from home culture in view of the growing restrictions due to the spread of Coronavirus?
Choosing an integrated platform makes the difference
For startups that are considering starting a remote work program, consider an all-in-one collaborative solution that takes care of your company’s messaging, video conferencing, screen sharing, file sharing, and productivity needs. There are many tools available in the market that focus on specific elements of remote work, like just voice calling or just video conferencing. But choosing tools for each individual functionality separately means businesses have to adopt and pay for multiple tools just to get started.

Likewise, companies struggling with tooling overload could save themselves a lot of frustration and money by consolidating their communication and collaboration tools into a single platform.
That said, Coronavirus as a catalyst for remote work isn’t sustainable. For remote work to stick around, it has to be a conscious choice. Remote work provides huge quality of life benefits and business efficiencies, but only businesses that focus on building an inclusive remote work culture will see sustained levels of performance..

As more and more people are exposed to remote work opportunities, it will become less of a perk and more of a necessity, as shown by our research below. Most businesses competing for talent will need to tailor their operating model as per the preferences of their workforce and embrace remote work.

As a startup founder / leader, all you need to do is start with a basic remote work policy and select a robust collaboration platform to help your employees do their best work, no matter where they are.