Unacademy says 60% staff will work from home forever

Educational technology startup Unacademy has said that 60% of its 1,000-strong workforce will work from home permanently even after the ongoing nationwide lockdown is lifted.

The development, a clear stance in favour of the remote working model, comes a day after Jack Dorsey, the cofounder of microblogging platform Twitter, said all employees at the San Francisco-based company have been given the option to work remotely forever.

“Even post the lockdown, 60% of our entire workforce will be working from home permanently…,” said Gaurav Munjal, cofounder of Unacademy, which counts private equity major General Atlantic, Facebook and Sequoia Capital as its investors.

“We did a bunch of experiments in the past two months. The company has around 600 employees in sales and operations. Apart from a few core teams like product and content, where we need a lot of interactions and meetings on a daily basis everything can be moved remotely. The sales and operations people can come in when leaders call for meetings,” Munjal added. He said Unacademy already has more than 1,000 educators who are working from home and that employees have been using workplace communication tools efficiently.

Most technology companies, including Amazon and Google as well as startups, have given staff the option to work from home, but only till later this year. Others, like Flipkart and Udaan, have resumed operations with minimal staff.

Growth stage companies told ET that they will continue to evaluate office working conditions and will refrain from taking permanent decisions at this time.

“We will rethink our office needs,” Ravish Naresh, founder of Khatabook told ET.

Many startups and investors believe that the work-from-home option is going to be temporary, given India’s lack of infrastructure.

“Employees who live in tier 2 cities faced power shutdowns and did not have enough UPS backup for uninterrupted work,” Adhi Kesarla, cofounder of 7Sugar, a healthcare analytics platform, wrote on Twitter.

Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, said: “Most middle-class families live in small apartments that are not conducive for WFH. While some small percentage will stick, most others will go back to normal in 2 years.”