As your eardrums are assaulted by the blare of your alarm clock, you shut it off lazily, but instead of jumping out of the bed in panic-ridden hurry to get ready for work, you decide to lie in your bed for a few more minutes. When you finally get up and go through your daily chores before getting ready, instead of ironing your shirt you decide to just put on a blazer, because why not? Don’t even have to worry about the trousers anymore. As you finally click on the Cisco/Zoom link and log in to your workplace, you have already decided that you are going to turn off the camera after a few minutes so that you can have your breakfast in peace without distracting your colleagues.
What was a reality for a few of us and seemed like a script of some distant dystopian sci-fi movie for the rest is now the existing order of things for a majority of us. After all, not being able to go to our workplaces or colleges for almost half a year is a serious deal. After all, a highly infective, respiratory virus which has a kill count in millions worldwide and thousands in India itself is a serious deal. COVID-19 has changed our lives in ways unimaginable, and unimaginable carries highly negative undertones here. At the height of display of its lethal capabilities, the virus caused deaths in large figures in countries such as USA and Italy, striking immeasurable fear in the heart of people worldwide and triggering lockdowns in different parts of the world, with India witnessing one of the strictest lockdowns amongst all of her counterparts. The lockdown which started on 24th March earlier this year and continued till 31st May[1] by the means of extensions triggered other crisis such as nation-wide migrant crises when scores of daily wage worker started moving towards their hometowns for the fear of loss of jobs and thus means of survival. However, the loss of job wasn’t just limited to the lower echelons in the class hierarchy but affected almost all of the employed population equally due to the sudden jolt the economy received due to the shutdown of economic activities, with around 12.2 crore job losses in India[2]. Those of us who were lucky to have retained their jobs were forced to adjust to a new routine of work: Work from Home. The shift in attitude, work culture, planning and implementation has occurred not amongst the employees but employers as well because now has become the best time to realise the motto of ‘The show must go on’.
Amidst all the gloomy backdrop it is the unstated principle of making the best out of the situation which the companies are trying to effectively realise and therefore, the necessary transformation has been brought about in the work culture and policy to make it better suited for the needs during the pandemic. Hence, when the thirsty can’t reach the well, might as well be the other way round. The remote work culture in the face of such difficulties has become one of the key policy features post the rise of COVID situation. That the offices have shut down doesn’t mean that the operations have as well. Rather, the offices have been shifted to the residences of the employees who continue to improvise and adapt to the new normal while constantly making their contribution towards their companies more effective. A recent Gartner poll showed that 48% of employees will likely work remotely at least part of the time after COVID-19 versus 30% before the pandemic[3]. The more exclusive affiliation of work from a home culture with the IT sector has more recently extended to the other branches of the service sector. Keshav Murugesh, Chief Executive of business process management player WNS and former Chairman of IT industry lobby grouping Nasscom, had explained that how the organisation had responded to the challenge by helping its members transport over 25 lakh desktops from offices to associates’ residences within a fortnight, which ensured work can continue[4]. Furthermore, according to the PTI report, TCS’s Chief Operating Officer N. Ganapathy Subramaniam is said to have explained his company’s target of having 25% per cent of the company’s workforce work from home by 2025. According to him, work productivity and effectiveness tends to increase manifold while working from home. So what contributes to the increasing popularity and preference of work from home amongst the employees? The answer is simple: Pushing yourself to achieve a daily work target becomes relatively easier and convenient in a familiar and homely environment. A substantial factor in this phenomenon is the fact that commuting daily to the workplace leaves many of the working individuals exhausted, especially those who travel a long way to do so. The exhaustion from just travelling to the workplace is a natural hindrance in the way of realizing one’s productivity and working potential up to full capacity. While the traditional 9 to 5 office is still widely prevalent and most organizations’ have not attempted to enforce unique, work-friendly culture apart from mega tech giants such as Google which is known by its revolutionary work-friendly policies[5] such as an office putting-green and authentic jungle (Dublin), beach volleyball and climbing walls (California), an authentic New York apartment styled conference room and a virtual library with a secret, revolving bookcases leading to other departments (New York) and steps towards enforcing ethics such as an open plan to encourage collaborative collisions, additional common areas – coffee bars, cafeterias, lounge rooms etc, areas that are designed for more than one person, rather than single-occupancy and so on, work from home attempts to provide traditional 9 to 5 professionals with an opportunity at the achieving the same level of productivity. No secret that service sector professionals have been the biggest beneficiaries of work from home transition phase.
THE LAWYERS’ PERSPECTIVE:
One of the many professions that were dealt a grievous blow due to the lockdown effect is the legal profession. If you happen to be affiliated with the legal profession and happen to be on job hunting platforms such as LinkedIn, it is impossible these days to not run into professionals asking for jobs suited to their qualifications. Beyond, the decorated profiles and resumes of LinkedIn, there is a different world of law practitioners all over the country who suffered worse and were even forced to leave this profession to find odd jobs for the sake of survival. With the full-frontal advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was inevitable for the courts nationwide to go into quarantine mode, with Supreme Court restricting its functioning only to hear ‘urgent matters’ in March and High Courts along with subordinate Courts slowly following the suite. Daily appearances in court are the main source of income for most advocates, and cash flow has come to a drip, if not completely dried up. This steep decline in cases filed has consequently resulted in a significant dip in court fee, besides lawyers’ income. A petition was filed in the Madras High Court, seeking a direction to the state and the Bar Council to release Rs. 50,000 to advocates, in order to compensate for the loss of work. However, the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu & Puducherry has resolved to disburse only Rs. 4,000 each to needy lawyers. The Bar Council was not in a position to release any more money because of limited resources[6]. The suite of salary cuts undertaken by employees as well as employers of different sectors has not spared legal profession and the partners of major law firms have taken salary cuts to adjust to the shock of lockdown effect. But however trudging the line like every other field, the legal field has also been hanging in there by adjusting to working from home culture.
With pendency of cases in crores, the Indian courts already have a reputation for delayed justice. Much of it has been attributed to the skewed ratio of a number of judges available with respect to the cases pending. But a factor which is often ignored is Indian judiciary’s old school functioning with minimal reliance on technology. Electronic filing (e-Filing) of cases is the first step in moving towards the e-Courts system, Chief Justice of India S. A Bobde said while speaking at a webinar where the Supreme Court’s e-Filing module was demonstrated[7]. While the e-filing system cannot be seen as a complete replacement of the existing order of things in the Indian Courts, it will prove to be a breath of fresh air during the current crisis when one cannot reasonably be expected to travel all the way to file a case.
Furthermore, the crafty, at times heated courtroom hearings have been replaced by video conference hearings which are rather straightforward nature. The Supreme Court of India vide has released several SOPs (Standard of Procedure) regarding the procedure of logging into the e-courtrooms via links sent through Whatsapp. Arguing from behind the computer screen might seem to limit minus the touch of the earthly aura of courtrooms; however, in the words of Sr. Advocate and former Attorney General of India, virtual courts are a great instrument for younger lawyers to hone their arguing skills. Rohtagi, who was speaking in a webinar organized by the Akhil Bhartiya Adhivakta Parishad said that while in-person hearings might give more exposure to young advocates while arguing, against a senior advocate or an advocate of more experience, they might be interrupted multiple times, leaving them less confidant. On the other hand, virtual hearings follow a strict procedure, often muting the counsels when it’s not their turn, hence giving a proper opportunity to the counsels to put forward their case.
However, coming to the possibility of work from home becoming a permanent normal, the experts don’t think it is likely. While work from home culture may appeal to your convenience, it eliminates the social touch in work culture completely, something which is not feasible in the long run. Even if the social aspect is put aside at the cost of equating humans with mechanic entities, work from home can never replace the traditional work culture in terms of deliverance. Not to mention, that work from home has always been seen as a privilege exclusive to the service sector, even services cannot be delivered while simultaneously maintaining the quality the customers are used after a certain amount of time. The harsh reality cannot be brushed aside that the heavy role of computers, laptops and smartphones in work from home culture makes it unfeasible for lower strata of society. Recently, the news of a Kerala girl committing suicide for the inability of joining online classes highlighted this social divide. Although, as the world slowly opens up with precautionary measures, one can only expect that the positive aspects of work from home will be ingrained in the post-COVID reality for better.
[1] Gettleman, Jeffrey; Schultz, Kai (24 March 2020). “Modi Orders 3-Week Total Lockdown for All 1.3 Billion Indians”. The New York Times; “COVID-19: Lockdown across India, in line with WHO guidance”. UN News. 24 March 2020.
[2] (The Hindu Data Team, Data: An estimated 12.2 crore Indians lost their jobs during the coronavirus lockdown in April: CMIE 2020)
[3] Baker. M, 9 Future of Work Trends Post-COVID-19. Retrieved August 02, 2020, from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/9-future-of-work-trends-post-covid-19/
[4] P. (2020, April 26). COVID-19 impact: More staff in services sector companies to work from home in future as well. Retrieved August 03, 2020, from https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/covid-19-impact-more-staff-in-services-sector-companies-to-work-from-home-in-future-as-well/1940050/
[5] What can we learn from Google’s offices about workplace design? (2016, April 19). Retrieved August 03, 2020, from http://www.workspacedesign.co.uk/what-can-we-learn-from-googles-offices-about-workplace-design/
[6] Kohli, R. (n.d.). From the Bubonic Plague to COVID-19: Impact of pandemics on the Legal Profession In India. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.barandbench.com/columns/from-the-bubonic-plague-to-covid-19-impact-on-the-legal-profession-in-india
[7] E-filing of cases step one in moving towards e-Courts system: CJI. (2020, May 15). Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://indianexpress.com/article/india/e-filing-of-cases-step-one-in-moving-towards-e-courts-system-cji6412012/
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