After work from home, the anytime-anywhere work trend is popular, especially in Tier-2 cities

A borderless workforce that can work anytime and from anywhere: That is the emerging trend of work in India, says a top human resource consultancy company. It offers evidence in the form of rising salary levels in Tier-2 cities. Ahmedabad leads the pack, with Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Jaipur, Nagpur, Lucknow, Indore and Coimbatore joining the growing list of non-metro cities that are becoming favourite hiring centres. The salaries in the junior, mid and high levels are no longer disproportionately lower than in Tier-1 cities. The consultancy firm’s report says that work is beginning to search for talent and as uncertainty over the COVID-19 pandemic continues, work from home could shift to work from anywhere in 2022. Employers, now used to non-manufacturing departments functioning online, prefer either of two things: One, find employees who are comfortable working from their homes in other cities and towns. Two, future recruitments are made in smaller cities, away from headquarters. The consultancy firm believes that Tier-2 cities are the future “talent hubs” and “job-creation centres”. Urbanisation with a focus on new infrastructure development is preparing our Tier-2 cities to be the inheritors of future work. Most of these cities are emerging as hubs of industry, ranging from e-commerce, IT services, textiles, consumer goods, engineering, education, food, finance and health. Jobs for a range of services are available, including in manufacturing, sales, customer service, technology, finance and operations.

In the process, not only are they attracting talent from within and outside, they are also attractive as they flaunt lifestyle aspects similar to metropolitan cities. For the employers, hiring from Tier-2 cities makes sense because the overheads are low. Rents and routine expenses are much lower than in metro cities. The personnel are comfortable and can be retained better. The companies will have a better distributed resource base for their business. For employees, life is glitzy thanks to retail chains and malls, eateries and specialty restaurants, salons and gadget stores that crowd the smaller cities. That is not all. Commutes are shorter, reasonable rents get you larger living spaces — and working spaces — there is little or no pollution, less congestion and parking problems, and there is a chance that you live close to your family. The pandemic has changed the working culture globally. Work from home has given way to hybrid work forms like half-time work and remote work, which will become popular in India as well. Lower stress and higher productivity levels are already being noticed. In no time, this trend will lead to concepts like co-working spaces to make work a truly anytime-anywhere function. These are neutral spaces where employees from different companies share workspace, utilities, common infrastructure and secretarial services. Millions of workers use these spaces in the West. They offer flexibility, are affordable and, importantly, free workers from the tiredness of continuous work from home. Let India brace itself for a work culture revolution.