Wipro’s Rishad Premji explains why some employees are considering going from company offices

According to a recent Work Trend report by Microsoft, 53 per cent of the global workforce are considering going fully remote or as millennials would say, from anywhere. One in every two people surveyed said they are considering changing employers in the coming year.

The revelations made by Wipro s Rishad Premji in a conversation with Business Today at Davos become a lot more interesting in that context. He said that nearly 45 percent of the Wipro workforce has never worked from a company office and that the company has hired nearly 40,000 new employees this year. This comes at a time when there is inordinate demand and finite supply for tech talent.

We've increased our fresher hirings. We are giving them a roadmap. If you join us today, then in your offer letter if you do X, Y and Z and grow and perform at these levels, you can be at a compensation of X and doing these kinds of roles in the fifth year, said Premji.

Premji strongly believes that a hybrid model is the way forward and he would like his employees to come into office some time. His rationale for people to come back to office is to promote culture and innovation. He said that a lot of people want to come back and have that sense of connectedness and a social equation in the office. They want to build a sense of community around them. According to the Microsoft report, Premji's views resonate with a lot of employers who say their company is planning to return full time within the next year, but a whopping 52 per cent of employees prefer the flexibility of remote and hybrid work.

Premji clarifies that there is an inherent advantage to flexibility and that is inclusiveness, so it will become imperative to strike a fine balance. He adds that the other advantage of having flexibility is inclusiveness. People with disabilities, people who want to stay in small towns, are some of the people who want to stay in small towns. We'll come up with a model where x percentage of our people can work from home, on a full-time basis and maybe come in for a few days a month, etc. We'll discover what that is, because we want to push to some sort of hybrid model for the majority of people.