It’s been a long day. It’s 2 a.m. already and the work never seems to end. Your daughter had her first stage appearance today, but you couldn’t make it because of an endless stream of meetings. You initially thought that it would be a one-off night but as it turns out, a year has passed doing this. The expectation to stay up every night is weighing on you as it is considered a mark of commitment and a sign of being a team player. You tried to negotiate but the manager considers every task to be a priority. You are nearing a point where you want to get things done, but your mind has become numb.
A familiar feeling?
Is it something to be proud of or is it a misguided sense of what productivity and a responsible citizen is?
Ever since Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy underlined the importance of dedicating an individual’s majority share of time to work (70 hours per week to be precise), many industry leaders have come out to support the same. While 70 hours per week can be considered largely symbolic, we must dissect the philosophy behind it. Mr. Murthy goes on to justify his position by quoting the need to fuel India’s economic growth story. The fact that this position is not just one individual’s opinion and the kind of support it received from different business quarters make it important for me, a human resource professional myself, to examine it.
India’s development journey skipped the critical step of a surge in the manufacturing sector to have “services” as the most critical contributor to the economy. While skipping a step of development evolution may seem like a good thing, it is detrimental to a country of India’s size and population. Without a thriving manufacturing sector, the country’s ability to provide job opportunities to a majority of India’s employable youth will be limited. This limits the fruits of economic growth to white-collar workers. A good share of the workforce which has the potential to become blue-collar workers ends up underutilised. This is perhaps the biggest problem in the development landscape that is holding India back from making the transition from a developing nation to a developed one. Hence there is no evidence to prove that India’s growth is held back by poor productivity or low proportion of working hours compared with the working population. It rather feels like an easy excuse to exploit employees to create stakeholder wealth. The fact that politicians and administrators seem to support this position shows how eager they are to cover up decades of poor policy making, corruption, bureaucratic red tape and unscientific implementation and blame it on hard-working citizens for not working hard. Hence the solution that is proposed by Mr. Murthy has nothing to do with the problem at hand.
If we look at the top-five countries that have progressed economically, the main driver of their growth after the Second World War was scientific innovation and rigour. This comes through better education systems, the cultivation of a culture of thinking differently and incentivising research over operational work. Once again, working longer than is required is not the solution to create breakthrough ideas, but rather enhancing the quality of work and capability of each professional. An innovative mindset is less likely to be ingrained in a mind that is compelled to log in 12-14 hours a day.
It is limited and outdated to assume that the idea of a developed nation is solely based on growth in GDP alone. A good share of nation-building goes into the self-education of the citizen, being aware of its politics and actively participating in it, ensuring that public goods and services are taken care of, actively engaging in giving back to society through volunteering, actively encouraging and supporting the growth of arts, culture and cinema and most important, investing in relationships including being good parents. Our shortcomings as a nation are as much a cultural one as it is an economic one. So naturally any cultural change requires educating oneself and investing time and energy into bringing theory into practice. Hence purely from an angle of holistic development of the nation, Mr. Murthy’s proposal is not fit for a modern nation.
I found it hypocritical for Indians to be respectful of boundaries of time and space for our foreign counterparts but not so for our colleagues. It makes me wonder if there isn’t a small part of us which hasn’t broken away from the colonial idea of not being deserving of happiness and being forever to toil for our existence.
There is plenty of research that underlines the fact that our country is an unhappy one. It is ranked low on the happiness index. Our low levels of social education towards taking care of our public assets and services can easily be witnessed by the state of unfinished projects, unclean neighbourhoods and stolen properties. A day in the rush hour traffic of a metropolitan city reveals much about our careless, rude and apathetic culture and the value of human life.
Given that an average employee overcomes so many challenges just outside work yet tries to turn in their best versions at work itself is commendable. With employers possessing the bargaining power in most cases, the average employee is made to settle for lower than what the person is adding value for. Despite all this, we are ever greedy to be asking employees the one thing that they have at their disposal — their time. The time to relax, develop oneself, mentor kids, take care of parents, finish household chores, pursue a hobby or a sport and socialise are all sacrificed at the altar of an unsustainable expectation of longer working hours.
If we consider the lifetime value of an employee contribution, having an employee work for 70 hours a week reduces overall productivity by a significant share as compared to having a more balanced work arrangement. As in most aspects of life, the theory of diminishing marginal utility applies to individual productivity as well. It reduces the productivity of the employee by not leaving enough time for introspection, innovation and improvement in the domain of his work. Their continuous ignorance of physical and mental health will lead to a drop in productivity, their lack of interpersonal connections will reduce their social quotient and their lack of attention to the family, will lead to emotional exhaustion. It blocks a multitude of sources through which happiness flows to an individual and reduces it to appreciation and monetary rewards at work. The mental balance of the employee is contingent on those rewards which in turn is contingent on a multitude of variables that are not in his or her control, making them vulnerable to a mental health crisis if things don’t go their way.
In this mad rush to reach higher valuations and acquire a greater share of customers and a bigger market share, sustainability is the keyword. The Indian growth story will never be a 100-metre sprint. It must be a marathon for which there has to be a consistent but harmonious effort from its people. While respecting and appreciating the wonderful contributions of the entrepreneurs and business owners of this country, the time has come for them to ask themselves, “Are you valuing your success only based on how much wealth you’ve created for your shareholders or is there a bigger purpose you’re working towards?” In that journey, won’t you desire to see your colleagues pacing alongside you rather than dropping by the wayside due to burnout? Won’t you rather have India as a country in which its citizens contribute not just by paying taxes but by becoming better parents, better thinkers, better voters and by contributing to the social capital of this country?
I am hopeful that we realise this collectively as a nation and give each other the time, space and respect we deserve and rally around creating the greatest nation on earth not necessarily by the dollar value but by the sheer amount of happiness we possess.
goutamjay@gmail.com
