Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent advisory to organisations to consider switching to work from home (WFH) sparked the debate, the Global Capability Centres (GCCs) — which are already in a hybrid mode — might find it difficult to further calibrate their day-to-day operations to allow their staff to work for more days from home.

Almost all of them are already in hybrid mode, with office work ranging from two to four days, optimising resources to the core. Recalibrating this model could well be a challenge for them.

This new space in the IT industry is attracting attention as India emerges as a global hub for GCCs. It now employs 2.3 million professionals or 40 per cent of the country’s 6 million IT workforce.

“About 99 per cent of GCCs have already established hybrid work norms. With great nudges and engagement, they have reached a two- or three-day work from office (WFO) culture after a three-year struggle,” Kamal Karanth, CoFounder of Xpheno a specialist staffing company, told businessline.

“The real challenge comes here. The average attrition rate in GCCs is pegged at 12 per cent. If you look at the bottom of the pyramid, this goes up to 18 per cent thanks to the rapid growth in the greenfield GCCs. This means that they are constantly dealing with a large part of their workforce that is learning or moving. It would be difficult for them to handle this if they increase WFH days,” he said.

“When one-fourth of the organisation is on the move, increasing the number of remote working days will hamper the organisation’s productivity,” he said.

Nearly one-fourth of the GCCs in the country were established only in the last 2-3 years, with some becoming critical bottlenecks in the innovation backbone of their respective parent companies. Some of them are being referred to as global innovation centres, indicating that they are well beyond the description of a GCC.

“For now, we are already working on a hybrid model. We are closely monitoring how the fellow GCCs are responding (to the Prime Minister’s suggestion). We will take a call, if need be,” a top executive of a GCC for a US-based financial services company.

Global context

The new GCCs need to establish themselves within their global context and start delivering. With the new set of leaders and workforce from various organisations they have hired, they need to congregate more often to align on processes and work culture.

“Remote work may not be ideal for a brand new setup in India, with millions of dollars invested thousands of miles away from headquarters,” Karanth said.

JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) Technology & Business Services India, which is already in a hybrid mode, sees no significant change in their strategy.

“We are already following a hybrid model. It has been working well for both the business and our employees so far,” Lalitha Indrakanti, CEO, JLR TBSI, said.

“As an organisation, we always evaluate our ways of working, keeping in mind business requirements, employee wellbeing and broader external factors. At this point, we do not foresee any significant change in our current approach and will continue with our hybrid working model that works best for our operations and teams,” she said.

Published on May 19, 2026