Coronavirus effect: How work from home is testing companies' technology readiness

The work from home regime, which has been necessitated by the global coronavirus outbreak, has forced companies to build or scale their remote working capabilities to meet the needs of a huge chunk of their workforce working from the confines of their homes, reported Fast Company.

While technology readiness is one issue, remote work could also help companies cut costs.

Aditya Puri, the managing director of HDFC Bank, has revealed that about of third of the private lender’s employees are working from home and the practice could likely continue even after the pandemic has died down as it saves costs.

“Approx. 33 percent of our people are working from home, no reason why this won't continue post this crisis passes, our costs will only go down,” Puri told reporters at a media conference call on Monday.

There is a likely incentive for companies to institute work from home pandemic or not, but to allow employees to work without any glitches or comprising with sensitive company information, they will need to provide or upgrade technology. And the unfolding situation has highlighted that a majority of the firms are not ready yet.

“My number one inquiry call is, ‘We have X number of employees who have never worked from home before, who are now forced to work from home. What do we do?'” Fast Company quoted Rob Smith, a Gartner analyst as saying.

Some firms need to upgrade quickly. “We know of at least one company whose VPN capacity is 8,000 users,” Simon Migliano, the head of research at Top10VPN.com, told Fast Company. “Now, they have over five times as many employees as that trying to connect, with predictably frustrating results.”

The pandemic has also given a chance for firms to test the pervasive belief that employees are more productive working from offices. Time will tell whether that assertion holds.