Post COVID-19 Work Strategies and Implications: Insight on Indian it Sector

The purpose of this paper is to examine the work strategies adopted by leading Indian IT companies post COVID-19 and their institutional and individual level implications. Following the exploratory sequential mixed-method approach, in the first phase, the data were collected from 8 leading IT companies in India to understand the work strategies implemented post COVID -19 to ensure employees’ safety without disrupting client deliverables. In the second phase, the primary qualitative interviews were conducted and selected IT companies’ financial statements with a systematic analysis of financial indicators were used to gauge the impact of new work strategies. The study reveals the selected IT companies were embracing Work-From-Home or Work-From-Anywhere as their work strategies by ensuring little to no disruption, were armed with a host of technology tools that allowed employees’ swathes to new work-norm within hours. The study findings manifold implications of the new work-norm are that it has no negative impact on the companies’ client deliverables and profitability. The paper confirms that the remote-working approach has resulted in reduced carbon footprint, work-life balance, and de-urbanization while identifying the flip side of this approach as the negative impact on team cohesiveness and employee emotional wellbeing. This research confirms the critical lesson learned from COVID-19 is agile companies must plan for a range of incomprehensible contingencies to ensure business continuity and growth. The research findings contribute towards understanding the Indian IT sector experiences in adopting the remote-work strategies and taken as lessons that can be useful for other global IT sectors.