Since Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy commented last November that Indians should work 70 hours a week, there has been a barrage of criticism. Many of these critiques are misplaced. Here is why.
First, Murthy did not suggest that official work hours should be 70 per week, as some articles have interpreted. Neither was there any suggestion that companies should force employees to work long hours. Second, all 70 hours of work need not be spent working for an employer. They can include time spent in self-development. Third, he stated that extended work hours make sense only if productivity can be maintained.
Murthy worked up to 90 hours a week while building Infosys by choice. No one forced him to work that long. This is likely to be true for most other entrepreneurs, whether they admit it or not.
Currently, how do India’s young adults — aged 20 to 29 — spend their daily time?
Also read: Young married women are sleeping less and working more in Indian homes, time-use data shows
Paid and unpaid work pattern
Using nationally representative data from the time use survey 2019-20 for India, we reported in an earlier article that, on average, employed young men in urban India worked 8.5 hours daily and spent 30-40 minutes per day on household work. Employed young women in urban areas worked for 6.5 hours at workplaces and 2 hours 45 minutes in domestic work. On average, leisure activities and time spent on mass media was around 1 hour 20 minutes. Sleeping and self-care activities take around half the day — about 11 to 12 hours.
This daily time-use pattern, on average, doesn’t seem to reflect an excessive dedication to work by young Indians. However, an inherent gender imbalance exists in the nature of work, given social norms around domestic work.
The averages may obscure the diversity within the sample. Some individuals spend fewer hours at workplaces, while some, whether voluntarily or due to employers’ pressure, engage in overtime or feel obligated to extend their working hours.
Certainly, any form of compulsion beyond the mandatory work hours is not advisable. Murthy certainly wasn’t talking about compulsion. He was speaking about voluntarily working for longer hours.
In which kind of companies would employees willingly stay beyond the mandatory work hours without compromising productivity? Employees do not mind going the extra mile in companies where employee-employer goodwill is high, and the employer takes care of employees well in terms of monetary or non-monetary benefits.
Many overlooked another crucial aspect of Murthy’s remarks. When individuals discover passion and meaning in their work, it transcends being merely a means of financial compensation. The work-life balance debate then becomes muted.
Also, beyond time spent in a primary job, individuals can spend time upskilling and in continuous learning, all of which can be done on their own accord. After his recent comments, Sudha Murty defended her husband, saying that she works for 70 hours per week even now, entirely voluntarily.
Also read: Indian men work more but women have less leisure time
There are trade-offs. Choice is yours
Time is limited, and there are inevitable trade-offs. Long work hours — at the primary workplace or for different employers, at home or in offices, or time spent by choice in upskilling — leave people less time for family and health. What was the impact of Murthy’s decision to work longer hours on his family life?
The biography An Uncommon Love: The Early Life of Sudha and Narayana Murthy provides a glimpse of the Murthy household when children were young. Sudha Murty raised their children Rohan and Akshata largely alone. The book mentions that Akshata considered her grandfather her “real dad”, and Narayana Murthy was her “bonus dad”, given the little time he spent with them. Another anecdote mentions Rohan confronting his father, “Who do you love more — me and Akshata, or Infosys?”
Clearly, Murthy did not get his time allocation right when his children were young. Spending up to 90 hours a week in the office cost his children the time with their father. In an interview with CNBC TV18, he also recently expressed regret about excluding his wife from Infosys despite her being highly qualified.
So what is the bottom line?
For young married couples, the choice of how many hours to work would depend on financial need, the meaningfulness of work, a joint decision with the spouse, and the time trade-off. Finally, as economists would say, good decision-making is about applying the marginal principle — because time is limited and there are competing activities, the decision should be based on the marginal benefit and the marginal cost of extra time spent in an activity.
Based on the above trade-offs, there is no one-size-fits-all. For some individuals, the ideal time spent at workplaces may be 20 to 30 hours part-time or 50, 60, or 70 hours!
Murthy encouraged young Indians to opt for longer working hours. As with any advice, the decision of what is best for us is up to us to decide.
Vidya Mahambare is a Professor of Economics and Director (Research) at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. She tweets @mahambare_vidya. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)