India Inc’s debate over work-from-home is returning on a call from prime minister Narendra Modi as part of a strategy to deal with the repurcussions of the West Asia war. This comes at a time artificial intelligence is reshaping jobs and productivity expectations, while macroeconomic pressures—from currency weakness to tighter cash visibility—add a new layer of urgency for chief executives.
Mint reached out to Dr Ram Charan, feted global advisor to CEOs and boards, for his views on the tough choices CEOs need to make. Dr Charan, formerly a board member at Hindalco Industries, dwelled on work from home, top CEO worries, how AI will reshape the workplace, and how workers can retrain themselves. Edited excerpts from the conversation:
How will AI impact jobs and the nature of work?
AI will eliminate jobs. There should be no confusion about that. In history, when jobs were eliminated, new jobs were created. This time, however, it may take longer for new jobs to emerge. So there is going to be a gap.
But people are intelligent. They know it is coming. Fear is not the answer. You have to move forward and shape your life. There is so much available for learning and gaining new skills. There are also new kinds of jobs emerging. You cannot simply remain fearful and do nothing.
AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude have democratized access to high-level capability at low cost. An ordinary high school student can use them for $20 a month and become far more productive.
What is worrying CEOs most?
Currency decline of around 10% over the last 18 months has emerged as the greater worry. It's not stopping, supply chain things are not easily available. People borrowed money in dollars. It's a very, very difficult time. Make no mistake about it, every single CEO [I met] in the last week is asking do we have enough cash? Do we have enough energy? Do we have enough supplies? Are our customers okay? Is inflation going to go up? Will the demand decline?
Tell us more about the concerns.
When I use the word concern, I do not mean negativity. Strong leaders see challenges and deal with them. They think about them, talk to people, and take action.
This is not a disaster. It is not 2008 or 2009. Things will smoothen out. If the Iran war stops quickly, this challenge will largely water down.
How will India Inc. deal with WFH differently from the pandemic era?
People have now tasted that there is a lot of freedom to work from anywhere. You can sit under a tree anywhere and still work. I call that liberation from sitting in a box under the supervision of human beings.
We now have supervision done through the analysis of data using algorithms and OpenAI. The consequences may be administered by human beings, but the diagnosis comes from data. Now the question is: what should be the real reason for coming to the office? That is what we need to focus on.
A large part of company work today is done through cross-functional teams. Today, companies have people living in Bengaluru, Delhi, and California working together through Zoom in multifunctional, multi-country, and multi-city teams. It gets done. But these same people will tell you that the quality of nuances is not the same as what you get physically. There is a social element that comes when people are face to face.
What are the lessons then?
Companies need to think about which tasks truly require face-to-face collaboration and where that collaboration creates value for both the company and the employees. Many companies still do not have algorithm-based monitoring of performance. Amazon does, Meta does, Google does.
We now have to operate on a dual course — team-based, face-to-face collaboration when needed — but without the physical supervision we had 100 years ago on assembly lines, where the boss sat on a balcony watching workers on the floor. Those days are over.
Wherever physical collaboration is necessary, people need to come together. If they do not like it, they may have to look for another option. There will not always be democracy on that. In almost every role, there is some part of the work nobody likes. That is why it is called managing. That is why companies look for collaborators and team players when they recruit people.
Is there little trust between employer and employee?
There is no such thing as corporate trust. Trust exists between people. A corporation is an imaginary structure with aesthetic walls. If trust is declining between people, then something needs to be done about it. The two most important parts of trust are these: say what you think without distortion and deliver what you promise.