Half of Indian workers feel more productive while working from home: Gartner

The pandemic-triggered work-from-home environment has made Indian employees more confident with messaging and video calling apps, while also making them more productive and the transition a lot more easier as compared to a full-time return to the office, finds a new Gartner survey.

The report titled ‘Gartner Inc’s 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey’ found that 50% of Indian hybrid workers feel more productive when they are working remotely as compared to working from the office.

Indian workers told Gartner that they were more productive when working remotely as it allowed them to avoid traffic snarls and 3 to 4 hours spent every day while commuting to the office.

In comparison to Indian workers, 40% of participants in the UK, France and Germany said their productivity remained the same, while over 30% of Australian workers said they were more productive from home.

With drop in Covid count, companies across India and the world have started calling workers back to offices on alternate weekdays.

Apple said it wants employees back to the office from February 2022 once or twice a week. Google is also expecting workers to return to the top office from January 2022.

The hybrid model has also been appreciated by workers as it makes the transition a lot easier as compared to a full-time return to the office. 

Rashmi Kotipalli, principal research analyst at Gartner points out, “Indian workers’ use of technology has accelerated since the onset of the global pandemic in 2020. 

Improved digital dexterity, willingness to use real-time mobile messaging and virtual meeting solutions, along with scheduling flexibility led to employees experiencing an uptick in their overall productivity while working from home.”

Also read: 61% of employees feel more connected to colleagues during WFH: Survey

The Gartner survey also finds that 83% of Indian digital workers said they use mobile messaging apps for work daily, which is more than the global average of 60%. 

Indian hybrid workers also said they prefer virtual meetings over face-to-face meetings, unlike their counterparts in China and Japan.

“Virtual meetings have always been desired by Indian workers. During the pandemic, Indian workers experienced first-hand flexibility benefits they can reap out of virtual meetings and now this has become their preferred choice,” said Kotipalli.

The findings of the survey were presented at the ongoing Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2021.

For the survey, Gartner analysts interviewed over 10,000 full-time employees between November and December 2020.  

These employees worked full-time at organizations with more than 100 employees in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific and around 1,550 of them were from India.