Office Timings Weigh Heavy On Mumbai, Delhi; It's Time For Walk-To-Work Projects

A study by Swiss bank UBS says that, on an average, Mumbaikars works 3,315 hours a year. Not just them, the workforce in HanoI, Mexico City, New Delhi and Bogota clock in the maximum number of work hours. Mumbaikars also have, on an average, the least number of paid vacations at 10.4 days, making them one of the longest working cities in the country.  

Compare this with cities such as Riyadh where on an average an employee enjoys 37 paid leaves a year. Moscow, St Petersburg, Barcelona and Doha are among cities where paid leaves are 30 and above. But, we are not talking about work here. In cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, where work hours may be long, it becomes all the more important for property developers to come up with walk-to-work residential projects.

Why do we feel the need?

Although Mumbai and Delhi may have come up in the list, many other big and small cities have been grappling with the same problem of office timings and traffic. Perhaps, if you look at the time taken to commute to reach the office and back home, most productive hours of the day is spent on the commute, thanks to traffic. While Indian cities have seen infrastructure development, sometimes work in progress also hampers the pace of traffic on the roads and therefore one spends more time on the road than expected. Though better physical infrastructure can be one solution, keeping the population of the country and Indian cities in mind, homes closer to offices should be a reality. However, this again comes at a cost, a premium most people cannot afford. Can such homes be affordably priced? In most cases, perhaps not. This is exactly why the developer strategy may have changed over time.

What is the alternative?

The peripheries are opening up in almost all cities now. A common example is that of Thane in Maharashtra that saw immense investor interest when Mumbai looked saturated for further construction. Over time, however, Thane became a bed of luxury real estate projects and is priced out for many. It has equally become a commercial hub. Further off Thane, new areas are now being explored that have both price and location advantage. In Delhi, the L-Zone promised affordability but planning issues have dwarfed the advantage. In Delhi, UBS says that an employee puts in 2,511 man-hours per year. Again, in a city that is clouded with pollution and affected by traffic, the total time taken to commute to one’s workplace and back may be much more all of which is detrimental to one’s health and productivity.

A lot of companies are going remote, opting for mobile offices or co-working spaces. This is a healthy trend but is restricted to those companies that can afford to do so, mainly start-ups or organisations with a small headcount. Amit Ramani, Founder & CEO at AWFIS Space Solutions Private Limited says, “Back in the 1980’s, office space density was close to 300 sq ft per person. Today, the number is brought down to 100 sq ft.” In such scenarios, space efficiency and just-in-time offices could cut down on the extra unproductive hours that employees put in today just on the commute.

In future, with time, space and other constraints, perhaps employers and property builders may come up with effective ways to address this issue.