Plug And Play New Joiners During Pandemic Times: Creating A Sense of Belongingness

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has forced several companies to swiftly switch to remote working. The Information Technology (IT) industry responded early by adopting a remote working model. It is now clear that, remote working is here to stay. This model will be an integral part of the working world more than ever. IT organisations have been able to make this migration considerably well in a short span of time. However, it is important to realise that implementation of remote working is a much broader subject. Organizations expect the new joiners to integrate into the organization in a manner similar to a plug and play device. New joiners take time to adapt to a new work environment. Those who joined during the pandemic missed the opportunity to get a first hand experience of their organization due to the remote onboarding. We studied two groups of employees, those who joined in their respective offices in 2019 and those who joined remotely in 2020. We tried to understand and compare the sense of belongingness amongst these two group of employees. The survey approach was adopted for analysis, and a total of 144 employees participated from 27 IT Companies across India. A One Way ANOVA was performed to compare the means and the outcome of the survey. The result was conclusive and corroborated the fact that, the sense of belonging in virtual workers stands low. Some of the significant reasons were due to the lack of regular connect with managers, irregular performance feedback and the dearth of instant recognition for work done. As remote working is going to be a part of future work strategy, it is important to bring the sense of belongingness early on amongst new joiners. Recommendations to address the belongingness gap were provided based on our discussion with a group of HR Managers.