Work from anywhere as a concept is fast gaining acceptance because of the flexibility it affords to employees. What we have been seeing lately is that organisations prefer to substitute time tracking with activity tracking of their teams. This means managers are more interested in what an employee is doing and the results achieved in a day of work than on the actual time spent in an office premises. Employees can work from home or work from a Starbucks. They can choose the days of the week to come to the office for important meetings while the rest of the time they stay away from the work space.

A recent survey from ConnectSolutions, that counts Adobe and Microsoft as its customers, shows that 77% of employees report greater productivity while working offsite with 30% accomplishing more in less time and 24% accomplishing more in the same amount of time. What is interesting as well is that 52% of respondents are less likely to take time off when working remotely – even when sick. This can greatly enhance an organisation’s productivity while minimizing loss of production from absent days.

Despite such revealing statistics, this paradigm shift is progressive and forward thinking for Indian companies. It is not limited to young startups but established organisations that are willing to offer greater freedom with greater accountability to their executive teams. Since executives are not confined by fixed working hours, they can schedule their work at the time when they feel most productive and comfortable.

I hear that large companies like Unilever have pioneered this practice of work from anywhere. One of our customers in the pharmaceutical industry with a large sales force that is mobile and spread across the country has been using this method of working for several years. We recently introduced this work from anywhere policy with one of our sister companies as well. The verdict is still pending but by all accounts individuals and teams have embraced the concept.

As a result, we as an HR cloud solution company, have been offering customers the opportunity to use modules like timesheets and sales activity tracking as they move away from attendance management and location tracking features and toward tracking productivity. These activities can be tied to revenue and profitability metrics likes leads generated, sales orders closed, cost of absent days and returns on investments in employee training. It has challenged us to reinvent our solution. By doing so, we are providing more strategic information to customers to help them manage their businesses.

With the advent of cloud software, mobile phone apps and better internet connectivity from Indian internet providers, the trend toward mobile work is likely here to stay.

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