Permanent Work-from-Home jobs for select roles gain popularity among IT companies

Permanent work-from-home (WFH) jobs are fast gaining popularity, especially for select roles in the IT sector, as employees are able to demonstrate better productivity and other health benefits, even as they work remotely.

Job search platform Naukri.com currently has more than 93,000 permanent and temporary remote jobs listed, out of which 22% jobs were for permanent remote roles only. More than 32 lakh job searches for permanent and temporary remote jobs being made by Indian job seekers in the last six months on Naukri.com. Out of these, about 57% of searches were made for permanent remote jobs.

According to Naukri.com, some of the companies posting both temporary and permanent remote jobs include Amazon, Tech Mahindra Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, PWC, Trigent, Flipkart, Siemens, Deloitte, Oracle, Zensar Technologies Ltd, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), and Capgemini. Globally, companies such as Slack, Twitter, Spotify, and Tata Steel have allowed employees the option to work remotely throughout the year.  

TeamLease data reveals that profiles like data scientist, software developers, designers, product managers, technical writers, programmers, recruiters, and other individual contributor roles are most likely to work from home on a permanent basis.

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Data also suggests that productivity has increased with the WFH arrangement. A FlexJobs report shows remote and flexible workers tend to be happier and more loyal employees due to the lower stress levels when working from home. “Some of the pros for WFH are increased flexibility, reduction in overall infrastructure costs, employee retention, access to a wider talent base, less distractions and overall cost savings for the employees,” said Siva Prasad Nanduri, business head - IT Staffing, TeamLease Digital.  

That said, remote working has its own disadvantages. “Freshers are at a disadvantage as work is seen more as a transaction than collaboration and can become a hindrance for growth in their career,” added Nanduri.

Nevertheless, as remote working gains popularity, Tech Mahindra is seeing an increased demand for gig workers who have the necessary niche skills sets. “We currently leverage an artificial intelligence-based talent marketplace called, Talex, to identify gig workers internally. We have also built an external marketplace called BeGig that enables employers to seamlessly tap into the freelance workforce and hire the appropriate and requisite talent,” said Harshvendra Soin, global chief people officer & head of Marketing, Tech Mahindra.  

HR experts, meanwhile, believe remote working is here to stay as it provides access to talent without geographical barriers. “Organizations with a remote work culture will be leading the way to attract top talent, and to give employees more options to define their work-life balance. In talent acquisition and retention, companies now realize that to attract and keep the best talent, WFH must be an option,” said Varun Sachdeva, APAC Recruitment Leader, NLB Services, a workforce solutions provider.