Amid growing discussions around flexible work culture and fuel conservation, Sridhar Vembu has explained why the company is not planning to expand its work-from-home policy despite recent suggestions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraging reduced travel and fuel usage.
In a post shared on social media platform X, Vembu said Zoho internally reviewed the possibility of extending work-from-home arrangements but concluded that face-to-face collaboration remains more effective, especially for research and development teams.
“Ultimately, after a lot of people inside weighed in on my X post, we decided not to expand WFH because the productivity of face to face problem solving is much higher in R&D,” Vembu wrote.
He further explained that technical issues and problem-solving tasks often take longer when teams are not physically present together.
“I have experienced this in my own development team – issues take longer to resolve when you are not meeting the people involved in solving the problem. Collaboration happens more fluidly face to face and we come up with better solutions.”
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Modi had encouraged organisations and citizens to adopt measures such as carpooling, public transport, virtual meetings, and work-from-home practices to help reduce fuel consumption amid rising global crude oil prices.
Instead of increasing remote work, Zoho said it is focusing on alternative sustainability initiatives. According to Vembu, the company is exploring electric bus fleets for employee transportation, electric cooking systems in office canteens, and has already invested heavily in solar energy infrastructure.
Vembu also recently commented on the ongoing AI-led layoffs across the technology industry. Responding to a post by a Meta engineer, he agreed that rising artificial intelligence costs are becoming a major challenge for technology companies.
“Important post from Meta engineer Arnav Gupta on all the AI-led layoffs,” Vembu wrote.
He added that the company’s own AI-related costs have increased sharply due to rising infrastructure expenses.
“Our own AI bill is skyrocketing and to add insult to injury, server prices have gone up 200-300% in a year because the AI infrastructure boom is consuming all the advanced memory chips.”
Vembu said many technology firms are cutting jobs mainly to control operational costs linked to AI investments and server infrastructure rather than because of a major productivity breakthrough.
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