Zoho won’t expand work-from-home policy, says Sridhar Vembu: ‘Collaboration happens more fluidly face to face’

He added that in-person interactions make collaboration smoother and often lead to better outcomes. “Collaboration happens more fluidly face to face, and we come up with better solutions,” he wrote.

Rather than extending remote work arrangements, Vembu said Zoho is exploring alternative ways to cut fuel usage and strengthen sustainability initiatives. “We are looking at electric bus fleets and electric cooking in our canteens to save fuel. We have made heavy investments in solar already,” he said.

See the post here:

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. I have experienced this in my own development team – issues take longer to resolve when you are not…

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) May 18, 2026

The post quickly gained traction, drawing a wave of reactions. “Face to face problem solving is faster because nobody can say ‘you’re on mute’ for 20 minutes,” a user wrote. “No pvt company will incorporate WFH unless it becomes mandated by govt. All these talks about face to face meetings and improvment in productivity are nonsense,” another user commented.

“What a shame! Very keen to see how you will announce when the country runs out of fuel and you need employees to still work for you!” a third user reacted.

The comments come days after Vembu had suggested that Zoho was reconsidering its work-from-home policy following Modi’s appeal to conserve fuel.

On May 11, Vembu had posted, “I hope all of us heed the Prime Minister’s appeal. As a company, we adopted Work From Office fully in recent months, but we will revisit Work From Home now. We have adopted natural farming in our farm and we are also actively looking for ways to cut diesel use.”