Siddhartha Dayani, a Mumbai-based marketing executive, recently said that a lot of companies are offering one monsoon work-from-home (WFH) day a month and said that he was not being sarcastic when saying so. He mentioned that he is genuinely curious about the thought process behind such a decision.
Mumbai experienced heavy rains on July 22, causing waterlogging and inundation at underground stations. The Indian Meteorological Department issued a Yellow Alert, and traffic crawled on both the Eastern and Western Express Highways.
“Love the idea of companies offering one monsoon WFH day a month. Truly, not being sarcastic. But I’m genuinely curious. How are we so confident that the Mumbai monsoon is only going to inconvenience the employees a month?” he said in a LinkedIn post.
He also questioned what employees are expected to do on days other than the WFH day.
“And the other days? Are employees expected to swim through waterlogged roads or spend half their rent on cab fares? I have friends in Ad and PR agencies (mainly PR in this case) who are showing up on her red alert days. They’re soaked, sick but still working. Why? Because the silent rule: show up, or it looks like the job doesn’t matter to you,” he wrote.
Dayani further went onto call this a “social move” and that this is just a gimmick for the companies to seem as if they care about their employees.
His post struck a chord with fellow social media users. “Hitting a little too close to home today,” one of the users said.
“Please talk about Gurgaon rains as well and how the so called fancy corporate hubs get flooded every other day (sic),” a user commented.
“Monsoon WFH policy: like giving someone one umbrella for a 3-month flood season. It’s the thought that almost counts (sic),” another user wrote.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said that 252 mm of rainfall was reported in 12 hours, while the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is prepared to mitigate the situation.
A pre-monsoon disaster management meeting was held with stakeholders, including the PWD, BMC, MMRDA, Railway, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and NDRF.
