Flipkart ends work from home policy for all employees, asks them to come to office five days a week

Indian e-commerce major Flipkart has ended its work from home policy for ‘all employees’, requiring them to be at office for five days a week, a new report has said.

The Walmart-owned e-commerce platform has asked all its employees to work from office five days a week, essentially ending the work from home option that they had been granted years back.

Flipkart had started giving its employees the benefit of working from home in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was in line with most other companies at the time.

Flipkart issues statement

Flipkart confirmed the development to Livemint and said that the company has been pursuing a gradual return to office for the past year and has seen better productivity across teams.

“At Flipkart, the vast majority of our employees and contractual/gig workforce, especially those in field roles, have always operated from their respective locations of work. In our Corporate Headquarters, we have been pursuing a gradual return to the office (similar to pre-COVID levels) for the past year and have seen increased interactions, synergies and deeper collaboration across teams,” a company spokesperson told Livemint.

Confirming the work from office policy, Flipkart said it aims to foster a “strong sense of community” for its employees.

“By returning to office, we aim to foster a strong sense of community for new hires and existing employees; and a shared focus on our common goals,” the spokesperson added.

Flipkart rolls back WFH

Flipkart has now begun to roll back its work from home policy that has been in place for five years since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in India.

The company had last year asked senior employees, mostly vice presidents and above, to return to office more regularly.

According to a report by Moneycontrol, a Flipkart employee has now said that the new policy would require all employees across functions to work from office for five days a week.

The report further adds that Flipkart now requires all it employees to work from office, and the new policy will be implemented in a phased manner over the next few months. There will be exceptions in some cases, depending on the type of the job and employees have reportedly been given a certain number of days where they can work from home.

With the latest announcement, Flipkart has joined its peers like Amazon and Meesho, which require its employees to work from home mandatorily.