The Relationship Between Stress and Remote Working in Indian Information Technology Companies

Abstract

Purpose: While remote working is a common practice in Information Technology organization, it was mostly confined to a small percentage of employees. The COVID-19 pandemic forced several companies to swiftly adapt to a near 100 percentage remote working model. The aim of this study was to understand the relationship between Stress and Remote Working in the Indian IT companies. Design/Methodology/Approach: With multiple waves of infection, several companies are yet to return back to office. It is by now clear that, remote working is going to be way of life. Most companies are looking at a hybrid work model even after the pandemic era. However, it is important to realise that implementation of remote working is a much broader subject. Employees have been complaining of stress and fatigue while working from home. NASSCOM data has shown an increase in attrition across IT organizations. We decided to adopt the survey approach for studying work stress while working from home and the impact on the intent to stay amongst employees working in IT organizations. We followed the snowball sampling method and a total of 181 employees participated from IT Companies across India. A model was created to explore the relationship between Autonomy, Emotional Demands, Work Pressure, Work Engagement, Recognition, Intent to Leave and Stress. A PLS-SEM model was created and the relationships were analyzed. Findings: A total of six hypotheses were tested and the result was conclusive. The result corroborated with the fact that working from home is stressful and identified the factors that influence the stress. While remote working continues to be a preferred option, the concerns raised by the employees were valid and hence stress induing. We also spoke to a group of HR Managers to understand and solution some of the problems that surfaced in our survey. Together, we arrived at recommendations that could help address these concerns. As remote working is going to be a part of future work strategy, it is important to bring about these changes to immediately reduce the increasing attrition in Indian IT organizations. Research, Practical & Social implications: Organizations should understand that remote working is the future way forward. With more clients being open to have employees working from home it is important for the organizations to ensure that they provide a stress free work environment to their remote workers. While there could be other external factors that could induce stress, it is the responsibility of the organization to focus on the controllable factos. Originality/Value: While working from home is not new to Indian Indian IT companies they have allowed only a small percentage of their workforce to operate remotely. Most employees are allowed to work from home on a need basis. However, permanent work from home is generally discouraged. Remote working by majority workforce was uncommon before the pandemic and hence this topic was rarely researched. The recommendations provided based on our research study could help bridge the gaps and help organizations reduce the stress levels of their employees.