The 70-hour work week
Narayana Murthy, Chairman of Infosys, calls for a 70-hour work week
Discussion on the IIMA WA group:
Arvind Agrawal: I, for one, fully endorse this. No substitute for hard work.
Anish Gupta: I disagree with this proposition. This has the effect of focusing only on input, not output. Once you agree what the deliverables are, and by when, it’s none of your business whether that is accomplished in 35 hours or 70. There will be weeks when it takes less than 40 hours. Equally, there will 70-80 hour weeks too.
DM: I agree with Anish, and he has articulated my objection very well.
It reminds me of the old chestnut...
Q. How many people are working in your organization?
A. About half of them.
In India, sectors such as banking and services already squeeze their employees dry, leaving them no time for other interests or pursuits. These people work very hard indeed. The pressure and competition is such that a bank employee is willing to come to my home to get some paperwork done! The same for the Zomato guy who delivers food at 10 pm.
This culture of mandatory presence, whether productive or not, pervades our system. A child may have a class only at 10.30 am, but must be at school from 8am. Someone's driver ( well, we have drivers, not uniformed chauffeurs!) may be required at 11am, but he must report every day at 9am . And so it goes!
Now all the IT companies, which managed to run their business pretty well through Covid, are mandating compulsory daily attendance for their employees ( many of whom worked without any distinction between home and office during Covid, working all hours). Definitely, the traffic in cities is becoming a nightmare as a direct result.
So...I can't agree that being at work for 70 hours a week is going to be a Good Thing. I just have to see the government clerks chewing their paan and sipping their chai as they thumb leisurely through thick files, and check cricket scores, to be convinced of this.
Anish: What I said wasn’t an argument for imposing 40 hour weeks. Instead, I was trying to shine a light on the short sightedness of what Narayanamurthy said. This emphasis on input (as opposed to output) is characteristic. Years ago, when we were in Bangalore, I remember telling Nandan (Nilekani) that body shopping would inevitably push them into a commoditised future, competing primarily on price. His response was, "We know that too, but to create value adding I.P. costs a lot of money." No wonder Narayanmurthy equated success with 70 hour weeks.
Personally, based on my experience leading teams over decades, I am actually against wearing your teams out with relentless work weeks which severely damage work-life balance. Equally, I abhor the practice of just being in the office until the boss leaves. I have often been the last person to leave.
Finally, this is by no means a call to over-staff by artificially reducing work hours. Challenging goals and deliverables will almost always require spurts of intense focus and long hours.