How much time will employees spend in office post-Covid? Microsoft India's HR head shares insight

In the last few months, there is an unprecedented acceleration in the adoption of technology by companies. They are quickly digitising their processes, how they service their customers and also the way they work. As employees work part from home and part from office, hybrid workplaces have become the new normal.  

So what is a hybrid workplace?  "It will have different meaning for different organisations based on their needs," says Ira Gupta, Head of Human Resources, Microsoft India. Different groups of people have different needs; there is a group of people who prefers working from office, then there is another group who wants to continue working from home two to three times a week.  

"A hybrid workplace will have flexibility at its core that will allow people to engage with it on terms they are most comfortable with. There will not be a one size fits all. But in many cases, it will not be fully remote either," she says.  

This flexibility and the agility of the new workspace will also change the fundamentals of how an office space has been created in the past. Earlier all the processes, employee benefits were created on the premise that all the employees work together in physical proximity and that will change considerably.