DM Deshpande
After Narayan Murthy it is the turn of another industry leader, SN Subramanya (SNS) of L&T to advocate a 90-hour work week. The latter has upped the ante from 70 to 90 hours of work for employees in corporate undertakings.
Not surprisingly, the statement has evoked strong opposition and reaction from different quarters. That no one from L&T has questioned or otherwise regretted the view point is to be expected; after all, in a culture of, boss is always right and strong hierarchical positions, remaining quiet is a practical solution.
An attempted damage control by the company HR too has boomeranged because the idea and also the ideal way of developing India was used as an excuse. Ironically, this sermon emerged from a question as to why L&T employees still do not have a five day week. It was supposed to be a town hall gathering and an informal interaction with the employees.
Worse was the argument of SNS in support of long hours of work. His question, how long will you stare at your wife has evoked sharp reaction, even from leaders of corporate undertakings.
That the top corporate leaders in India give themselves hefty salary packages with liberal perquisites is quite well known.
Yet the pay package of L&T chief has come to limelight in the wake of the current controversy. He was paid Rs 51 crore in 2023-24 including post retirement benefits which is Rs14 lakhs per day. Mind boggling and seen in the context of the median salary of a male employee in L&T which is Rs 9.8 lakh per year.
In terms of growth, SNS salary was 43 per cent more than the previous year. His remuneration was 40 per cent more than the second highest paid employee who is the president and CFO. Now how are employees who get one five hundredth salary supposed to react to the exhortation of their chief? By the way, L&T is a huge conglomerate, a respected company and considered a model of professional management. To reiterate, it has a glorious history of 80 years, over 50,000 employees and a FY24 annual turnover of Rs 2.2 lakh crore.
Indian employees are about the hardest working groups in the world, barring probably, China. The idea of 996 work culture is much glorified as it is believed to have made China the world’s economic engine. It is a practice where workers work for 12 hours from 9am to 9pm for six days a week. However, China is slowly but surely moving away from this unsustainable work schedule with the intervention of the government.
Asians have already made a name for working long hours. According to ILO, mean hours worked by an average employee per week is 56 for India, 50.4 for Bangladesh, 49.2 for Pakistan and Hong Kong 44. It is interesting to see workers clocking in lesser numbers of weekly hours in some of the very rich countries, for example, in the UK it is 35.1,the US it is 38 and in Japan 36.9 hours.
Apparently, there is a dichotomy here; but if one looks at the labour productivity it becomes clear-that the wealth of a nation is not dependent on just long hours of work. In terms of Purchase Power Parity (PPP) which is used to measure labour productivity, the hourly contribution of an average Chinese worker is 19.8 dollars, almost twice that of his Indian counterpart, $10.7.
While Indian productivity is ranked 133rd in the world, it is not that China’s is a case of a blazing trail; it is just close to the global average of $23.1. Yet with its vast population and years of reaping the demographic dividend, it has scaled up the global economic ladder. Rich nations invariably have a common feature, that of its labour productivity constantly looking up whereas even China’s productivity growth has plateaued and is actually declining.
Long hours of work ignores issues of sustainability, creativity and claims of diversity, equity and inclusion. Knowledge based industries do not thrive where the overall ecosystem is stifling. Probably because of short term vision and lack of matured leadership, India does not do well in R&D notwithstanding the proven potential of its scientists and experts.
Values such as dissent and freedom of expression sound hollow in an environment where no one has spoken up against the CEO in L&T. Even outside there are feeble voices here and there but strong dissent and censure are almost absent.
The younger generation leaders are emerging especially in startups, high tech firms and those which are driven by AI. But for these leaders to come to the center stage and make a transformational impact, the older generation veterans need to listen more, judge less, realize and yield more.
Since that is not going to happen any time soon, the apex industry body needs to set up standards and labour norms that strike an equitable balance between exigencies of work and leisure. If that is also not forthcoming, the intervention of the government would become inevitable.
The author has four decades of experience in higher education teaching and research. He is the former first vice-chancellor of ISBM University, Chhattisgarh.
