Covid-19 pandemic impacted each one of us poorly but then there are some positives also emerged which can drive Bharat towards its long-awaited developing journey. One such positive is newly imbibed WFH culture by the corporate world. WFH brought much relief to employees from traffic, allowed them to spend quality time with the family and achieve a much-needed work life balance which many were seeking from a long time.

Do you know, WFH has some more to offer than just work life balance? Before I tell you that, I am sure you all know the development in India is primarily limited to Metros and bigger cities. Smaller towns & villages never got equal share of investment & development. Few believes there is two different worlds our country namely India & Bharat and the gap of development between India & Bharat is huge & It’s widening with every year. There are reasons for it as well. Those who came to Metros for livelihood never return to their hometown. Reverse migration never happened in India & it is one of the reasons that ensured smaller towns will keep lagging for better infrastructure & good life.

You must be wondering what WFH is do with development of the country but WFH is that secret fuel which can drive development of the smaller towns & villages at a speed that cannot be imagined.

First, let’s discuss about Metro Cities– Every year lacs of people migrate to Metro cities. The burden on these cities’ infrastructure is growing with every day. Heavy traffic, High rents, High School fees, Water scarcity are just few examples. Quality of life have been severely impacted & even Metros are struggling for basic needs like water. But if a substantial number of employees get the opportunity to WFH, they are likely to prefer working from their hometowns. It will ease the burden on Metro city infrastructure. People will find some breathing space & better life.

Before, I tell you how it will lead to development of smaller towns- Let me draw your attention to the question: Why people migrate to Metros? The answers are- Job, livelihood, better life, school, colleges etc and Why Metros have better infrastructure? Because people living here have higher disposable income. It’s interlinked.

I believe you got the answer that how it will fuel an incredible growth in smaller towns & villages. When people will start WFH in hometowns, they will indirectly boost the economy of that place. Since, this earning population are WFH will high disposable income, the demand for everything good schools, hospitals, Infrastructure etc. will grow. Government & especially private industries will be more than happy to oblige in creating these infrastructures. As I mentioned earlier both are interlinked. Having good infrastructure in smaller towns will help people in staying back to their place. It will also lead to growth of ancillary business. There will be some great benefits in social security in these towns. Many move to metros for livelihood living behind their parents & family. Most of the time they are unavailable to take care of old parents. But with WFH, they can fulfil their responsibility of office works & responsibility of taking care of parents & the family.

There are so many benefits, but I want to specifically highlight one more- India is a country where many skills like Carpenter, blacksmith, cobbling are inherited from parents. There are hardly any schools to learn these skills. As kids are living away from the family & towns, they fail to inherit skills. In future, there are chances that these inherited skills will have to be put under endangered category & probably because of it, government has added vocational courses in new education policy. Had they been WFH, they could easily learn these important skills on weekends from the parents which will help them to manage family shops or start business or an earning opportunity in future. Almost none living in metros have any agricultural knowledge, but kids will have the opportunity to play in those rice fields, inherit knowledge.

We learned how Metros & smaller towns are going to be equally benefitted from WFH. We all know that development or providing social security is government responsibility. So, Why the most important stakeholder- Corporates will adopt WFH especially post pandemic because Corporates are going to be biggest beneficiary of WFH culture. There can be huge financial gains for the corporates by adopting WFH.

• They have pay lesser HRA compared to Metro cities
• They don’t have to pay travel reimbursement as employee is WFH.
• Since, employees are WFH in their hometowns where cost of living is comparatively lower than Metros, it’s likely that corporates will have pay lesser amount for salaries.
• The office rent, electricity, admin charges will go down as fewer employees will be WFO.
• They will have chance to retain best of the talents in the industry as no one will leave organization because of the location issues or family challenges.
• Employee will able to save considerable time which they earlier use to spend on travelling & that can lead more productive hours benefitting the organization.

WFH culture is blessing for all stakeholders (Government, Corporates & Employees) but it can act as sanjeevini for the development of Tier-II & III cities in India.