Seventy Hours Work Week - Rethinking Productivity
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12 NOVEMBER 2023
When Mr. Narayan Murthy suggested that young Indians should work 70 hours a week, he was finding a way out of India’s low productivity. All in good intentions.
Unfortunately, there are many wrongs in this great leader’s suggestion.
In Mr. Murthy’s generation, millions of Indians have worked 70 hours a week. It was the time when everyone was focused on nation-building.
The mission was to overcome colonial poverty and make India great again. It was a new India then, with aspirations driven mainly by patriotism.
Today, the times are different. Corporate profits drive Mr. Murthy’s call for 70 hours/week. Employees working for those long hours will only boost their earnings.
But considering that the corporations, especially those global giants, don’t even pay their fair share of taxes, See the number of litigations these corporations worldwide have about their tax issues.
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It was a new India then, with aspirations driven mainly by patriotism
In 2018, our big 5 IT companies had about Rs 15,000 crores in tax disputes.
Low productivity cannot be overcome by working excessively. Efficiency comes by upskilling, better infrastructure, and smart rules and regulations.
Ironically, the young India has no control over these parameters. Hence, working 70 hours a week with the expectation of improving productivity is like racing with punctured tyres.
Instead of 70 hours/week, the call should have been mission-driven.
It should have been a call for a 20% increase in patent filings or innovations to reduce 100% pollution in Delhi or reduce traffic congestion on roads by 50%.
Why can’t India have zero workplace accidental deaths? India still has workers working in septic tanks with bare hands.
Is that not a mission worth pursuing? As we speak, the news is that four workmen are killed, and 11 others are unaccounted for in a factory accident in Raigad, Maharashtra.
Today, on the roads of Bengaluru, where Mr. Murthy lives, employees of his company spend 2 to 3 hours daily on the road.
Here is the calculation.
If we reduce the traffic time, the nation’s productivity will improve by at least 15 hours per week per person.
That is equivalent to 2 days worth of extra time. Imagine the quantity of petrol/diesel we burn at the traffic lights.
Reducing it by 50% will save billions of dollars of precious foreign exchange from our oil import bill.
Is that productive?
So, the onus of improving productivity should not be solely on the employees but more on the companies, especially on the large companies.
One trick here.
If companies really want to improve productivity, then they should start paying employees for their daily travel time.
What will happen is that those corporates will then start pushing the respective governments for better infrastructure.
The idea of low productivity due to time wastage will fall in line — just one example.
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In 2018, our big 5 IT companies had about Rs 15,000 crores in tax disputes
On the other side of the world, in the country of Mr Murthy’s son-in-law, companies are pursuing for 4-days a week.
In a practical study already conducted on 61 companies, 56 of them, nearly 90% of companies, have said they will continue with this 4-day workweek practice, and 18 have made 4 days a week permanent.
India is still not America or Europe. We aspire to bring that quality of life to India, uplifting the human development index, but not at the expense of slogging and flogging the already overworked people of India.
The size of a work week and calculation of hours per week is too soft an issue.
It is nice to have, but a more pressing issue is the quality of employees; their skill sets and personal well-being are of prime importance.
India has the most extensive IT-skilled workforce. Still, we do not have one company in the Google, Facebook, Twitter, Oracle or Microsoft club.
With a 70-hour work week, an employee’s personal life will be restricted to only working, commuting, sleeping, and working again.
With a 70-hour work week, companies will remove a father and a mother from their children.
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India is still not America or Europe. We aspire to bring that quality of life to India...
The togetherness of a family will be in jeopardy. It will be too slavish, that too for corporates, who are aiming just for profit.
How far will corporates go then?
It is not fair!
Working 4-days doesn’t mean being lazy. It is about working smart, effectively and efficiently.
For those who believe that companies have no role outside of work, then their idea of productivity requires rethinking.
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