Why This Kolaveri Over A 70-Hour Work Week?

Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy did not realise that his podcast advice to youth in India that they should work for 70 hours a week would snowball into a national debate. Now, after a long time, Murthy is in the limelight and quite strangely getting both brickbats and bouquets for an idea he personally believes in. He has walked the talk, and it is no wonder that he has become an icon.

Is 70-hour work a week sacrilege?  Japanese workers have been working 90 hours a week for over seven decades now and that country has only progressed. Yes, we do hear about Karoshi – death caused by overwork or job-related exhaustion.

In India, for decades people did not have the luxury of holidays because of poor standards of living; the money they earned took care of their families, but saving for holidays was out of the question. Things are changing, though.

So this whole issue of work-life balance seems misplaced.

People are just being hypocrites. They are going with scalpels, attacking Murthy’s ideas mindlessly. Or shall I say merely paying lip service. If you check, most people who are critical of Murthy are the same set of people who are making their own drivers work for 12-hour every day. Ditto: servants.

So what happens to the work-life balance of your own drivers, servants and employees?

Charity begins at home…

Actually, if you look around, it is easy to notice that 70 hours per week are being logged in by those working in the unorganised sectors – drivers, painters, hawkers, hotel waiters, kirana boys. The security guard at your office or in the housing society works for 12 hours, sometimes 24 hours, if his replacement does not turn up.

And yes, doctors, nurses and ward boys have to log in long hours because of a demand-supply mismatch (patients-doctor ratios are less than 1 doctor: 1000 patients) as there is an emergency every minute.

Then, why this double standard? Why are we creating so much fuss!

Personally, I wish the government offices, courts work at least 6 days a week – a minimum of 60 hours a week.  They can be compensated by more paid holidays in a year – instead of 30, maybe 40 days. Besides, we should do away with this practice of court and college vacations. Vacations are fine for school kids.

Look around, and look at the people who have made it big.

Jeffrey Immelt, while he was working at GE, put in 100 hours every week for nearly 24 years. Perhaps this kind of commitment saw him sit in the CEO’s chair.  Similarly, Marissa Mayer put in 130 hours a week while working at Google. And our very own Indra Nooyi who became the CEO of Pepsi worked as a receptionist – from midnight to 5 am — to earn money so that she could do her master’s from Yale. Prime Minister Narendra Modi puts in an average of 18 hours every day or 126 hours a week.

I recall meeting Qimat Rai Gupta, the man who built Havells, who told me that an “overnight” success story, as defined by him, is 25 years of hard work, devotion and dedication.  So the pattern is very clear.  All successful people work hard, work long and work smarter than an average person.

Finally, I have always maintained that good work does not go out of fashion. It will eventually reward you. All successful people by pursuing their goals passionately for decades have won both the battle and war.

70-Hour WorkInfosysMarissa MayerNR Narayana Murthyper weekQimat Rai Guptawork-life balance