I still remember the day I got pregnant with my first baby. It was after a lot of early miscarriages and chemical pregnancies that I finally got that scan report with an active heartbeat. I was on cloud nine but that happiness did not last very long since my doctor advised me to take rest and not to travel during the first 3 months. I could not even think of quitting the job and I was sure that I will not get 3 months' leave. So the only way I could overcome this chaos was to request to work from home, which seemed like an alien word to HR and my manager. There were a lot of discussions with top management, managers, senior team members, new joiners, and maybe the security too. Finally, they agreed to give me 2 months of LOP. Yes 2 months loss of pay and along with that, I can take all my pending leaves also. So that becomes almost 3 months' leave. Since I had no other option, I had to take that. The irony was that I had to go to the office every single day from my 4th month to the day before my delivery since I had no leaves left. So that was how "work from home" was considered back then.

It is a new era for IT employees today regardless of the type of company and job. This is one of the best things that happened due to Corona. Every single IT company had declared work from home during the peak covid time and I believe IT is the only industry that got this flexibility. There were other professionals like Teachers, who could work from home. But watching my kid attend the online class and the trouble these little monsters give the teachers took all my agony of not becoming a teacher. With the work-from-home option, most companies were able to retain their employees and as employees, it was a boon to have our job safe. The bonus payment was the only thing that affected most of the employees during the covid season. 

Even though work-from-home had all these benefits, it had many challenges too. My second baby was born during the covid season and when I rejoined after my maternity leave, the work-from-home culture had already been established. Since it was the lockdown period, I couldn't send my elder kid to school and I had to work with a baby and a toddler at home. The maids were not allowed in most of the apartments since it was peak covid season. Cooking, taking care of the kids, attending online classes, homework, activities, meetings, job, cleaning, and whatnot. I sometimes felt like Goddess Kali in all aspects.

Scrum meetings were the only time the team was together online and that is more towards the funny side than the status updates and technical discussions. Sometimes there will be 4 little monkeys jumping on the bed and sometimes the wipers on the bus goes swish swish. Sometimes Peppa will be crying and other times there will be Paw patrol on the go. Each and everyone on the team works in different time zones. They all have their personal things to take care of along with the office work, because of which no one could demand them to work during a particular time. Working from the office was very different. There were more breaks than meetings and most of the heated technical discussions happened in the pantry rather than in closed meeting rooms. That gave us the freshness that is most needed in life. Meeting with people, discussions over Mohanlal movies to India's current GDP to the American President's latest speech. Everything under the sky was a discussion topic there. After such short breaks and discussions, the work felt more relaxed and stress was out of the equation.

While working from home, you are taken for granted. You have the flexibility of working at your comfortable time, so 'attend a late night meeting' was the tone. That sometimes removes all the flexibility from your life. Is there a work-life balance? Yes. Because I can make fish curry and attend a meeting. No. Because you are always expected to be available. 

Summarizing, working from home has its good and bad sides. But the flexibility it gives weighs off most of the challenges. Working from home can positively impact employees and many feel refreshed without having to commute. However, overworking is a reality many face as it can be hard to switch off at the end of the day. In an office environment taking breaks for a chat and enjoying the hour lunchbreak is part and parcel of the day. At home it is tempting to work through breaks or eat lunch in front of the computer.

Benefits:

• Flexibility to work in terms of location and time
• More effective use of time because of the possibility to do multitasking
• Higher productivity because of fewer breaks in between and fewer discussions over non-technical things.

Challenges:

• Less team collaboration and it affects the team being full of individual contributors and sometimes forgetting the need of team work.
• High employee burnout as it becomed difficult to separate work from life since both are happening at home.

When planned carefully and strategically, the hybrid work model - combining remote and office work - has the potential to improve the organization in several ways. A hybrid model can offer flexibility and empower employees to work to their strengths, which in turn boosts productivity. By encouraging a culture that views remote work as a positive alternative to completing deep-focus tasks in the office, teams can find a good balance of creativity and collaboration. From an organization perspective, once they move to a hybrid environment they can reduce the office space as every team can select different dates to work from office. With the hybrid model starting to seem inevitable, companies need to provide the right collaborative tools for both remote and on-site workers so employees can work efficiently in any type of setting. Whilst there are downsides to hybrid working, for the most part it is considered a beneficial way of working. Both companies and employees can reap the rewards of splitting their time between their home and office, tailoring their days to best suit the way they work best. It is predicted that hybrid working models will be adopted by companies across all industries. Many businesses that have already adopted the new way of working as a response to the pandemic cannot imagine returning to the office fulltime. Employees are happier. Productivity is elevated. Results are abundant.