In the southernmost part of Tamil Nadu, closer to a tiger reserve in Mundanthurai, and the Tier-V cities of Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, is a village where Zoho Corp Founder Sridhar Vembu, from the last nine months, is trying to pull off the unexpected. Sridhar requested YourStory to keep the name of the village where he is working anonymous.
While this vision was in the pipeline for years, the coronavirus pandemic only sped up Sridhar’s plans — making engineers work in rural regions, or “closer to their homes.”
At present, the SaaS company is experimenting with 10 villages in Tamil Nadu, where 200 of its engineers – 20 in each village – will collaborate and build software for the world. These feeder offices are situated 20-30 kilometres away from their home towns.
Sridhar Vembu has now dedicated himself to reviving Indian villages by taking Zoho's software engineers back to their home towns. From these villages, the engineers will collaborate with their global teams to build world class software.
Sridhar Vembu walks us through the village that he has chosen to stay in. He teaches Math and Science in the village school and helps students understand the harmful effects of plastics on the planet. He also tells them that every living being is made up of carbon, including dinosaurs and humans. After the class, he shows his students a YouTube video on the effects of plastics and then breaks for recess.
The Zoho Corp founder sits down under a tree, just like a farmer would do after tending to his crops, and says,
“I am encouraging every engineer in Zoho to spend time in farming and teaching.”
The Zoho Experiment
The experiment in Tamil Nadu villages was conceived after a recent survey was conducted in Zoho Corp. The company found that a little over 40 percent of its total employees, around 3,500 workers, said they would work closer to their home towns if they had a chance.
This nudged Sridhar to pursue his lifelong dream of moving his employees closer to villages. Over the last two years, Sridhar set up a customer support centre in the town of Renigunta in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. Its 120 member staff is from the local community, who live in villages and towns close to Renugunta.
With the coronavirus pandemic disrupting schools and offices, many of its employees working in Bengaluru and Chennai decided to move back to their home towns. In fact, the company also encouraged its employees to move back home days before the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 23.
“Everyone says rural talent is not world-class. But, I am sure they don’t realise that everyone comes from smaller towns and villages to work in cities, including the engineers. Now, an engineer working in global projects can sit out of his village and support global companies. Once this happens, imagine how people can get to save more, remain healthy, and balance their work and life. Remember living close to family and friends is also good for mental health. So these feeder centres of Zoho will get people together and will ensure that there is a chance to work for a global company,” Sridhar says.
As he walks across a paddy field in the village, Sridhar adds, “The biggest mistake over the generations has been the abandonment of traditions to take on large cycles of debt to live in cities. Now, by living close to their towns, they can get back to farming, serve their temples, mosques, and churches, and continue their regular work. Their children can be homeschooled, and the concept of schooling itself will change going forward.”
Once the work in the first 10 villages gets underway, Sridhar believes similar models will next be adapted in two villages in Kerala, and one in Andhra Pradesh. He also says that if successful, this model could be replicated by other companies for their employees.
Not just in India, but Sridhar is going to adopt the model in Mexico (Queretaro), USA (Austin, Texas), and Japan.
“One just has to go and visit the Bay Area and see how people are living at a place closer to their home towns. The pandemic has shown us that people will want to be close to their families and friends,” the founder says.
Philosophy and work
Sridhar is a follower of the Advaita philosophy. According to the Advaita philosophy, life constantly tests ones inner strength as the basis of social justice and equality.
“The world is currently hallucinating about artificial intelligence (AI) because some people believe humans can be replaced. If that is the case, then there is no social vision of that particular company, especially when you believe people can be replaced. India needs to learn to bring symmetry, which is a higher notion than the word ‘balance,’ back to its villages and small towns because Indian towns are not exporting high-value products. They sell commodities to cities, and have, therefore, not been able to be competitive. India has to become inclusive if its Atmanirbhar plans should come to fruition. Policies should stop focussing on large cities and consumption alone,” Sridhar adds.
After the interview, Sridhar went back to his small office, and worked with his engineers to build video-based collaborative tools. Post work, Sridhar says that he goes back to playing cricket with the village kids. He believes that this would be the future of work, and it would rewrite the history of work as village economies begin to prosper.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
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Link : https://yourstory.com/2020/06/zoho-experiment-founder-sridhar-vembu-village-offices-saas-company
Author :- Vishal Krishna ( )
June 23, 2020 at 06:00AM
YourStory