Zerodha CEO Says 90% Of Employees Will Work From Home Permanently

Online stockbroking platform Zerodha will have around 90 per cent of its employees working from home permanently. 

In a recent interview with Moneycontrol.com, Zerodha's co-founder and CEO, Nithin Kamath, revealed that nearly 950 of its 1100 employees will work from home permanently, whereas the core team will work in a hybrid model.  

The fintech major allowed its employees to work from home and moved the entire operation online during the lockdown following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Zerodha had set up satellite offices in smaller towns in Karnataka while 85-90 per cent of its employees were working remotely. 

"We have taken a call that we would do permanent work from home and people are enjoying living in their small towns. Belagavi has amazing talent, and we have a large team working there," said Mr Kamath in a recent episode of Moneycontrol Masterclass.

He added that Zerodha employees enjoy working in a small town like Belgavi, and they have maids and independent houses, which they could never think of affording in Bengaluru.

In a series of tweets last month, the CEO suggested that many of India's problems could be solved by allowing employees to work permanently from home.   

"While we all work together to figure out what we can do to help in the current situation, I think the only long-term fix is for many of us to move away from large cities. This is the answer to many of India's problems. And now is probably the right time to work towards it," tweeted Mr Kamath.

The Zerodha co-founder had said, “Large cities are choking and will continue to break down every time we're tested, COVID today, could be water shortages, pollution, floods, etc. Moving to smaller towns & villages will also create livelihoods there & reduce carbon footprint. Also a much better quality of life.”

Amid the speculations of a possible fourth wave of Covid-19, many startups are taking several steps to avoid disruption of operations.

In February, Meesho, the e-commerce firm backed by Softbank, also announced that it would permanently allow its employees to work from home, office or any remote location.

In November last year, IT giant TCS announced that by 2025 only 25% of its employees would be working from the office at any given point in time.

Zerodha, founded by billionaire brothers Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath in August 2010, has become India's largest online stockbroking firm, with over 9 million clients.