The COVID-19 pandemic brought about dramatic changes in the work environment. Almost 25 – 40% percent of workers in the private business sector worked primarily from home in 2019, the pandemic was the start of a huge experiment in full-time remote work for most workers and firms.

Several prominent Indian organizations have adopted remote work policies, making them known for offering work-from-home options to their employees. These include giant companies like TCS Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini. Other notable companies include Amazon Google, Microsoft, and Myntra. One of the biggest names in the world, Amazon is a popular recruiter in India. With almost 800,000 employees, there are various roles to choose from the software developers, testers, virtual assistants, customer support, logistics, and sales.

For the Indian subcontinent, Amazon provides a separate Virtual Customer Service (VCS) making anyone with basic communication skills apply and work remotely from India. Other major high paying roles are available for virtual positions as well, depending on their vacancy.  In fact, Amazon runs a separate platform for remote work in India. If someone is  qualified, he or she could work remotely from India for Amazon. Following the pandemic, Amazon also stepped in to help people who lost their jobs, by hiring 500,000 temporary workers. This makes the future of remote work from home in India a promising model.

Remote work involves no geographical boundaries, allowing organizations to tap into a global talent pool. Employers can access a diverse range of skills without being limited by the limitations of a specific location, promoting innovation and diversity in the workforce.

Also, remote work means working from anywhere other than the office, which can be  home, cafe, a resort, or just a coworking space. Instead of coming to the office and interacting with team members face to face, remote workers use digital tools to handle tasks, complete projects, and communicate with their team.

The rise of remote work significantly impacts organizations, offering benefits like cost savings and access to a wider talent pool, but also presenting challenges in communication, team building, and maintaining organizational culture. Remote work does lead to increased productivity and engagement for some employees, while others may experience isolation and reduced morale, depression. 

Let’s look at some of the positive effects

The positive impacts are cost reduction, remote work can lead to significant savings for companies through reduced office space, utility costs, and energy, water, employee commuting expenses. It provides access to a vast talent pool. Organizations can tap into a global talent pool, hiring individuals regardless of location. It permits improved productivity in employees. Some employees report higher job satisfaction and improved work-life balance, leading to increased productivity because of flexibility and autonomy, allowing employees to manage their work and personal lives better. 

Some negative effects:

Remote communication can be challenging, potentially leading to misunderstandings and reduced nonverbal cues. Remote teams may struggle with fostering a sense of community and belonging, potentially leading to isolation and reduced confidence. Maintaining company work culture becomes difficult. Remote work can make it more difficult to maintain a shared company values and culture and sense of identity. One of the challenges can be security and data. Remote access raises concerns about cybersecurity and data security, requiring robust policies and procedures. Monitoring and control over employees are tough job. Some organizations may implement increased monitoring and control measures to ensure productivity in a remote setting. 

Some jobs are very suitable for remote working:

Many job roles are well-suited for remote work, particularly those involving digital tasks, customer service, and technology, marketing, and finance. Examples include software development, digital marketing, customer service, data analysis, and graphic design. In technology, software development, data analysis, IT management, and cybersecurity. In social media management, copywriting, marketing management, and sales representative. In finance, accounting, financial analysis etc. In customer service customer support, feedback, replacing damaged product etc. In HR  recruitment, employee engagement, training, compensation etc. In project management  leading and coordinating projects where team members work from various locations, using digital tools to facilitate communication and collaboration.

Conclusion:

The average remote job salary in India can vary significantly based on the specific role and experience level, but generally, it ranges from ₹375,833 to ₹2,105,500 per year. Entry-level positions might start around ₹375,833, while experienced professionals could earn up to ₹2,105,500 annually. With no daily commute, no excessive coffee breaks, and no long hours away from friends, family, and kids, remote work greatly improves employee experience and well-being.

When as a society we are so used to seeing self-obsessed, self-centered, self-engrossed people around us, we can’t imagine that people like Kalyansundaram also exist amongst us. These days we see people evolved as hard wired and generally predisposed. It is so difficult for people to explain what altruism is in a general sense. People find it very difficult to contribute; even if they are in position to help, care for someone, contribute, and provide; they shy away from doing so. People don’t mind wastage, but giving is generally difficult. People generally fear giving time, money or efforts to others perhaps because they fear consequences. The biggest   challenge in giving is that you overcome the fear of losing but still you go beyond your basic ability of holding on.

It’s really stirring to recognize Kalyansundaram – a retired librarian of Kumarkurupara Arts College at Srivaikuntam in Tuticorin district. For this 73 years old philanthropist, humanity has been his guiding principle of life. Kalyansunderam holds a gold medal in library science; he also holds a master’s degree in literature and history. Throughout his 30 years long career, he conscientiously and willingly donated his salary month after month towards charity and did odd jobs to meet his daily needs. Even after retirement, he works as a waiter in a hotel in exchange for two meals a day and a paltry salary. Even today, he continues to donate to children’s educational funds.

This thin, frail man, who sports a shy smile, has determination and fire in him to serve the society.  He speaks in a childish manner in a high-pitched voice. He has told in some of his interviews that he lived in a tiny village with lack of any infrastructural amenities – no provision for roads, buses, schools, electricity, and there was not even a shop to buy a matchbox from. He had to walk 10 km to school and back and walking all that way alone was a pretty lonesome experience. Hence, he thought of motivating some more children to go to school. He thought going to school in a group of children would be great fun. Those days children could not afford to pay school fees which was as much as Rs.5/- only. So Kalyansunderam offered to pay their school fees, got them books and clothes as well. So from early childhood, he formulated the habit of giving. He had lost his father in his childhood, his mother was the guiding force in his life and she instilled in him the courage of giving and donating.

He has sometimes slept on railway platforms and pavements to have an experience of what poor people go through. In true sense Kalyansundaram is a hero. He is hero because of his high moral character, value based living, and helping the humanity. He is living a simple life in spite of earning several monetary awards.  He has donated Rs.30 crores of prized money given to him by an American Organization as “Man of the millennium” and even after he retired as a librarian, he donated his pension of Rs. 10 lakhs! It seems the super star of south Rajnikanth has adopted him as his father! Well, this happens only in India!!

While United Nations has recognized this man as “outstanding people of the century” and International Biographical Centre at Cambridge has recognized him as one of the most notable intellectuals of the world and some American organizations have honored him, the Government of Indian Honor System is yet to credit this simple yet outstanding man for his yeoman services. When film actors, cricketers, entertainers and politicians of this country are awarded for little or unworthy causes, it’s a pity and shame on all Indians for their blindfolded honoring system. Well, he has been acclaimed as the best librarian in India by the Union Government – but his outstanding self-sacrifice is yet to be recognized.

So who is a real hero? A hero is someone who does something for society, someone who people look up to and say ‘I wish I could do the things he has done’.  A hero has the extraordinary ability to rise above those around him, he’s willing to do things that most just dream or imagine of. Wanting to do something is the first step towards establishing someone as a hero. And, heroism is what the heart and soul make the mind and body do in challenging circumstances. Young people need heroes to look up to and to emulate. The coming generations do need examples to understand meaning of generosity. Heroes are the key to any nation’s success. A nation needs to recognize ‘real’ outstanding people. I wish wholeheartedly that the Indian Honor System recognizes Kalyansunderam soon.

The healthcare industry is considered the world’s largest industry with total revenues of approximately US$ 2.8 trillion. In India as well, healthcare has become known as one of the largest service sectors offering employment to around 4 million people.

India can boast viable advantage over its peers in its large pool of well-trained medical professionals. Also, India has an upper hand in cost advantage compared to peers in Asia and Western countries. A surgery in India (minor or major) costs one-tenth of that in the US or Western Europe. While on one hand, the healthcare sector is booming and has a bright future; on the other hand, nursing shortage is becoming acute in India as well as many countries around the world.

In 2010, a World Health Organization report revealed that India alone needed 2.4 million more nurses; while in sub-Saharan Africa, shortages are having profound effects on health care. In Canada also a nursing shortage lingers on, with an expected 60,000 additional registered nurses needed by 2022.

The U.S. is also struggling with the rising shortage of nurses. The country is projected to experience a shortage of Registered Nurses (RN’s) that is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age is increasing therefore number of patients swelling. The healthcare need therefore is growing in US. The nursing schools across the country are stressed while trying to expand capacity to meet the rising demand for care giver. US is already working on healthcare reforms. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) is working with schools, policy makers, nursing organizations, and the media to address the shortage while trying attracting younger people’s attention to take up nursing as profession.

The number of registered nurses (RN) is steeply falling. This situation is observed in both developing and developed nations all over the world.  If we don’t address the nursing shortage immediately, it might result into a catastrophe. Because of the dropping nurses to patient ratio, many deaths are caused in hospitals. Also, this situation is increasing the workloads of existing nurses in hospitals which they are unable to bear.

We need to understand that nursing shortage is not essentially due to lack of supply of trained nurses in a country like India. In some cases, perceived shortages occur concurrently with enlarged admission rates of students into nursing schools. The shortage occurs due to lack of spirit of hospital managements to maintain adequate staffing ratios in hospitals, lack of healthcare facilities which force nurses to quit. We lack placement programs for newly trained nurses which are of great importance. Newly trained nurses at times don’t get opportunities to work. Lackluster attitudes of hospitals don’t even advertise the vacant nursing posts. Most importantly, inadequate salaries and retention incentives are the cause for the glaring shortage. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a shortage of almost 4.3 million nurses worldwide. This is due to decades of under investment in health worker education, good training facilities, illogical wage structure, bad work environment and heartless management.

We should realize that inflation hits everybody equally. While the inflation rates are raising nurse’s salaries are stagnant. Perhaps that’s the reason younger people are opting for better paying careers. Secondly, the workload of nurses is quite high, which has never been considered by policy makers. The nursing schools need to emphasize on clinical skills of nurses; this can be done by attaching more nursing schools to hospitals so that nurses are exposed to hands on experience. Many senior nurses have discussed their problems on various platforms; we need to empathize with their requirements. For example, to deal with Ebola problem, hardly any training is imparted to the nurses in private or government hospitals.

A study by the Commonwealth of Australia identified matters that led to attrition of nurses. The report says that many younger nurses are thinking of changing their profession because of constant schedule changes, high load of patients, tedious paper work, fluctuating work shifts, most importantly lack of appreciation from superiors, lack of appreciation from patients and their relatives, bad work milieu and laughable pay scales.

Let’s look the parity in salaries in India; a nurse in foreign country earns Rs.2.00 lacs per month whereas in India she earns Rs.10,000 and little above depending on her experience. Saroja Jayakumar, chief nursing officer, Manipal Hospital, has said this in one of interviews with Times of India that “The prime reason for shortage of nurses is poor salary”. In an interview, Dr Ajith Benedict Royan, vice-president, medical administration, Hosmat Hospital and Nursing College says that earlier many women from Kerala would opt for nursing profession. But, today, nursing is found less lucrative compared to other professions like engineering. Nurses from Kerala also prefer to work in foreign countries as they have an opportunity to earn high salaries there. The number of men opting for this profession is lesser. Kearala has supplied nurses globally. You go to any part of world, you are sure to find at least one or two Keralite nurses in hospitals.

Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya, feels that if nurses are not offered enhancement in their careers like the US offers, why would younger generation opt for a dry and lesser paying profession? In US, graduate nurses can pursue courses in anesthesia to become nurse-anesthetists. They can also become interventionists and earn as much as a doctor. Can we offer such training in India? Unless our policy-makers take concrete steps in enhancing syllabus for nursing, there is no much hope to attract younger people to opt for this profession.

The policy makers need to spend some time to brainstorm workable solutions. We need to offer specialization in nursing courses. Reshape the nursing course syllabus by updating it for present over reliance on technology needs, upgrade the clinical facilities in nursing schools, and last but not the least revamp the policies in appointment of nurses by upgrading their pay scales. We need to take immediate steps and strategies to solve the increasing shortage of nurses. Nurses are one resource we simply cannot afford to do without. We therefore, need to put bandage on it to cure this problem.

In the words of Dag Hammarskjold “Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.”