The 90-hour Work-week Debate: Productivity, Misogyny and Employee Rights
An article on Justworks.com begins with a powerful statement, “Work-life balance isn’t just a buzzword — it’s a critical factor in attracting, retaining, and inspiring top talent around the world.
 
Apparently, this does hold sway at Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Its chairman, SN Subrahmanyan, sparked a social media storm last week with an internal meeting remark that went viral on Reddit.  "How long can you stare at your wife,” he quipped, expressing regret at not being able to call employees to work even on Sundays. Responding to a query about the lack of a Saturday off, Mr Subrahmanyan stated his desire for employees to work 90 hours a week which is significantly higher than the 70-hour work-week advocated by Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. He went on to quote a Chinese acquaintance who claimed that China could beat the United States (US) because Americans work only 50 hours a week. 
 
The backlash was swift with a meme-fest proliferating in social media. But L&T attempted to dig in its heels and defend its chairman saying he was misunderstood. Its spokesperson said, “At L&T, nation-building is at the core of our mandate. For over eight decades, we have been shaping India's infrastructure, industries, and technological capabilities. We believe this is India’s decade, a time demanding collective dedication and effort to drive progress and realize our shared vision of becoming a developed nation. The Chairman’s remarks reflect this larger ambition, emphasizing that extraordinary outcomes require extraordinary effort. At L&T, we remain committed to fostering a culture where passion, purpose, and performance drive us forward.”
 
This raises the question: Do companies that don’t enforce a 90-hour work-week lack commitment to nation-building? Perhaps this defence provoked industrialists such as Harsh Mariwala, Harsh Goenka, Anand Mahindra and others to publicly advocate for a healthy work-life balance, emphasising its importance for productivity and well-being.
 
The Larger Debate
Did Mr Subrahmanyan simply make an ill-thought remark, or does it reveal corporate India’s expectations of employees, who often lack the perks enjoyed by founders and top management? Let’s take a 360-degree look at the issue, before we bury this debate.
 
Historically, long hours and sacrifices have often been the price of success in various fields of human endeavour. But, it has to be a personal choice. The key lies in balancing productivity with sustainability. 
 
Productivity vs Overwork: The objective of making highly paid employees work for 70 to 90-hours a week at Infosys and L&T is, ostensibly, nation-building. In contrast, micro, small & medium enterprises (MSMEs), that contribute 30% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), or agricultural labour, which accounts for 15% of GDP, often work 70 to 90 hours, sometimes without social security protection or fair compensation. For true nation-building, we need better wages and a better work-life balance for these workers, rather than demand more labour from employees of large listed companies. After all, In India, approximately 93% of workers are in the unorganised sector.
 
This was evident from a pre-Budget discussion by The Economic Times (ET) that was unconnected with the L&T chief’s remarks. Two chief financial officers (CFOs) said that India needs job creation and better wages to drive growth as well as consumption. Wages had to increase, to meet cost of living in many sectors, said one, while another said that urban consumption, which had slowed down significantly, needed a push. Neither objective is met by large companies keeping well-paid people in office for longer hours. In fact, they may help the economy more by spending on entertainment, travel or socialising. The CFO of The Hershey Company wants the government increase disposable income through tax concessions or help create more jobs for the middle class in order to boost consumption. Ramani Dathi, CFO of Teamlease Services, flagged low productivity as an issue; but not because people were staring at their wives and not spending enough time in office. It is because job-seekers are not employable or job-ready and need significant investment in training. 
 
Work-life Balance: A 2015 study published by the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies concluded that overwork, or working beyond 40 to 50 hours a week has diminishing returns. It leads to stress and health problems and can show up on corporate balance-sheets in the form of accidents or expensive mistakes. That is when the developed world with organised unions adopted a 5-day week. Countries, such as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, went on to demonstrate that shorter work-weeks do not diminish productivity. The study also recognised that nuclear families, with no support networks, have family responsibilities that need personal time.
 
Then came technological advances that enabled flexi-work or remote-work, while the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated worldwide adoption of hybrid work models. The downside was that companies expected employees to be available on call or email on a 24x7-basis leading to stress and burnout.   
 
So France responded with a ‘right to disconnect’ law in 2017, allowing employees to ignore work-related communications outside office hours. At the end of August 2024, Australia introduced a law that allows employees to refuse to respond to job-related communications outside of their regular working hours. Both countries have mandatory 30-day paid vacations. Many US and Canadian companies not only offer remote and flexi-work options, but are generous with parental leave, to retain talent and ensure work-life balance. 
 
On the other hand, Southeast Asia and China still revere long working hours. China’s famed ‘996’ work culture, which expects employees to work 9am to 9pm, six days a week is often regarded as modern slavery. And yet, even ‘996’ works out to 72 hours a week (nearer Mr Narayana Murthy’s wish) compared to the 90-hour demand by the L&T boss! Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Japan also had long working hours, but the social cost attached is increasingly visible. 
 
Women & Misogynistic Work Culture: For many women, the call for a 90-hour work-week felt deeply sexist, trivialising their contributions at home and excluding them from the workplace. The L&T chief seems oblivious to the long-term impact of work cultures that required employees, especially men, to be married to the workplace and also socialise with colleagues after work. Countries like South Korea and Japan have experienced the consequences of such work cultures, with low fertility rates and increasing numbers of women opting out of marriage and motherhood. Consequently, fertility rates have dropped  below replacement levels.
 
In December 2024, the Tokyo metropolitan government decided to introduce a four-day work-week for government employees. It will also allow parents of very young children (grade 1 to 3) to log out early from work, if they take a small pay cut. Japan, whose fertility rate is now below replacement, hopes to encourage people to have children by ensuring that life events, such as childbirth or childcare, do not call a halt to their careers. Birth rates have falling steadily in Japan over the past eight years, to a low 1.2 in 2023 against the replacement rate of 2.1. 
 
The Japanese experiment doesn’t apply to India which is now the most populated country in the world. But it is important for corporate honchos to realise that equating long working hours to productivity and nation-building is wrong, misplaced and has a high cost. 
 
The L&T chairman’s remarks may have been tactless, but one positive outcome is that the ensuing debate has sparked critical conversations about productivity, work-life balance, their long-term consequences and the future of corporate culture in India.
 
Comments
biharisinha
3 weeks ago
Mr SNS and Mr Narayanamurthy has shown the ugliest face of capitalist mindset. Such people are the cause of inhuman exploitation of workers for their inhuman greed. And what makes them think that by paying low to their workers and expecting them to die at workplace due to overwork will make them richer ? May be. But certainly not happier. The world doesn’t work the way they tend to think. All humans should be respected. Just because you are paying them pittance does not mean that you are the ultimate masters and I don’t consider you intelligent enough too. You might be in delusion that you are the ultimate intelligent and hardworking person in the world but you have not learnt what humanity is. You have yet to learn that every human being should be treated with care, empathy and respect. You have no respect for their family life, no concern if their family life becomes hell. No feelings at all ? What are you people made up of ? I feel disgusted that it is coming from people of the land where Bhagwan Krishna gave the message in Bhagwad Gita.
prakash9mlm
3 weeks ago
We reject marriage proposal for our daughter from l&t software employee, because of 90+ hour work schedule.
david.rasquinha
3 weeks ago
Normally, one would expect the L&T Board to pull up Mr. SNS severely for such nonsense and bringing the company into disrepute. But the L&T Board misplaced its spine a long time back.
Khattarmd
3 weeks ago
Comparing the hours of work in Europe and America with those of a developing country like India is not fair at all
We in India have to work for more hours , firstly to be able to push our growth rate higher and secondly to overcome the time lost due to our poorer infrastructure and the use underdeveloped technology which needs more time than a very mature technology that the other western countries enjoy
Also we must remember that our type of Democracy does result in poorer output .
Therefore , there is a case for more weekly hours to be put in at this stage of our development. Not doing so would make us grow at very low rates which would be disastrous. Of course there has to be
more than usual stress on improving our work methods and make more efficient. Sooner we would be able to reduce the work hour as we become more efficient
M D Khattar

siddhartha.tripathy
3 weeks ago
L AND T and Nation Building.. Bullshit. The HR personnel must admit that L and T is looting the nation and its people in the name of Nation Building.. Government should stop giving contract to L and T.
comdtmceme2024
3 weeks ago
I think the main issue in our country is productivity. And not number of hours that we put in. I head a sarkari establishment and I can say with confidence that we can do the same work with lesser manpower. We should pack in more output in our 40-50 hour work schedules rather than make them sit for 70- 90 hours and make them stare at the laptop in the office or play solitaire or keep a file on the desk or sit in those infructuous presentations and meetings which take full days. Beyond 50 hours a week, it is non productive work. SO focus on productivity and not hours. A horse runs for 15 minutes and covers more distance than a mule would cover in an hour.
Kamal Garg
Replied to comdtmceme2024 comment 3 weeks ago
Good, motivated, attentive and positively charged employee at any workplace is a far better asset than someone who just stare at their laptop in the workplace. Staring at laptop is even worse than staring at your wife (??).
r_ashok41
3 weeks ago
one should ask whoever mentioned as to how much hours was he working when he joined Land T .Looks like he is fed up with his wife hence makes such kind of statement.These kind of misogynist people are not fit to live and should be banished from public life and also companies.Hope L&T has the courage to take necessary action against such un ethical people.
shantanu.ambedkar
3 weeks ago
Your article captures some of the international debate and critical issues on this subject. In one comment - as you mentioned Singapore had long working hours but it no longer does. Work life balance here is now amongst the best in the developed world.

In terms of the debate itself - firstly, for NRN or SNS to bring in national development as the reason for people to work longer hours is completely wrong headed. The national imperative today is job creation - so if they are so concerned about national development, the right thing for them to do is to give staff a 40 hour work week and hire double the number of people! Ofcourse it will dent their profitability and reduce shareholder value but making the case that what is good for Infosys or L&T is good for the country is taking it too far. What they really mean is that if their workers worked harder, it would improve their own salaries and wealth. Secondly, they need to recognise that almost 100% of their employees work for their own salaries and growth and do not come to work for the "national good".

For NRN to ask for higher work hours is understandable since his company is basically a body shop and not a "tech" company. His main cost of production is employees cost. Infosys competes on cost of billable hours and therefore more he can squeeze his employees the better it is for him, not withstanding all the work life balance and productivity issues which your article covers.

However, for L&T, salary costs particularly of white collar workers is hardly the main cost. To give the Chinese example or the East Asian example and concentrate only on worker costs (and that they are made to work in sweat shops), ignores more relevant economic issues - these countries did not succeed simply because they had sweat shops but because they focussed on all the factors of production - capital, land availability, logistics, ease of setting up and doing business, lower tariffs and better integration into supply chains. Human factor of production is a contributor but equally is the quality of that human capital - skill, training and education and ability to follow processes. Till we address these, simply making a small set of people harder is akin to the Central Government taxing the same small base to extract higher revenues - they do so because they can, but the revenue to GDP ratio still does not budge much!
shantanu.ambedkar
3 weeks ago
Your article captures some of the international debate and critical issues on this subject. In one comment - as you mentioned Singapore had long working hours but it no longer does. Work life balance here is now amongst the best in the developed world.

In terms of the debate itself - firstly, for NRN or SNS to bring in national development as the reason for people to work longer hours is completely wrong headed. The national imperative today is job creation - so if they are so concerned about national development, the right thing for them to do is to give staff a 40 hour work week and hire double the number of people! Ofcourse it will dent their profitability and reduce shareholder value but making the case that what is good for Infosys or L&T is good for the country is taking it too far. What they really mean is that if their workers worked harder, it would improve their own salaries and wealth. Secondly, they need to recognise that almost 100% of their employees work for their own salaries and growth and do not come to work for the "national good".

For NRN to ask for higher work hours is understandable since his company is basically a body shop and not a "tech" company. His main cost of production is employees cost. Infosys competes on cost of billable hours and therefore more he can squeeze his employees the better it is for him, not withstanding all the work life balance and productivity issues which your article covers.

However, for L&T, salary costs particularly of white collar workers is hardly the main cost. To give the Chinese example or the East Asian example and concentrate only on worker costs (and that they are made to work in sweat shops), ignores more relevant economic issues - these countries did not succeed simply because they had sweat shops but because they focussed on all the factors of production - capital, land availability, logistics, ease of setting up and doing business, lower tariffs and better integration into supply chains. Human factor of production is a contributor but equally is the quality of that human capital - skill, training and education and ability to follow processes. Till we address these, simply making a small set of people harder is akin to the Central Government taxing the same small base to extract higher revenues - they do so because they can, but the revenue to GDP ratio still does not budge much!
akhileshiob
4 weeks ago
As an employee I can tell that now we are not treated as human. The reason is availability of man power which allows them to say "if you are unable to work then resign", " I have n number of persons waiting to grab your job with less salary" , " You move outside no one will give half of your salary".

Even if some one is severely ill in the family, you are denied leave " Are you a doctor" they say.

In PSBs (where I work) normal timing is 10:00 AM to 09:00 PM. Even many have to work on holidays to complete the job as recruitment is not happening.
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