Will you work for 70 hours every week? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts

Indian needs strict labour laws to stop exploitation of workforce.

If the youth is ready to work for 70 hrs per week, is Infosys ready to compensate them for those extra hrs ?

I am an ex IT employee and Indian employees are exploited a ton. In the west after an 8 hour work day, any more work is compensated with money. Here in India, insane work hours is a normal thing and if working on weekends all we get is lunch or dinner and comp off. Our labour laws needs to be updated and enforced.

I had worked relentlessly and sincerely 12 to 14 hours a day 7 days a week almost 365 days for 25 years just to be thrown out unceremoniously. So much for being honest and sincere

Yes. We should work 80 hours too while his daughter becomes richer than the England queen. 👏🏻

One cannot compare the elite working 70 plus hours and the average employee. Bosses who have a good income and are dedidated to their career also have an infrastructure that supports this lifestyle. They have servants, maids, cleaners. They eat out, order in, have support staff who make it possible for them to what they do. They are not in a sweat shop making minimum wages eating left overs, traveling with public transport and then coming home to domestic responsibilities. If one didn't have to worry about doing laundry, cleaning, cooking, child care, fixing the car, yard work ... the list goes on, then it would be easier to apply more hours to ones job in receipt of proper compensation!

Before the pandemic, i was working in an office, and i had a manager that made sure i was in office for 9 hours a day, although i was able to complete my work in like 3 hours. very rarely i used to get 9 hours of work. Even then, if i leave like 2 hours early, he used to call me and shout at me. Does staying in office longer and doing noting increase my productivity at all!!. Thank god for covid (ironic i know) for getting this mentality out of people. Now i just work when there is work, else i just log in, attend the mandatory daily meeting and log off. !!. These CEOs will play golf or have dinner in 5 star hotels with client and say that they are working 70 hours a week. I strongly believe, 20 hours of work with full dedication and concentration beats 70 hours of sitting around and pretending to work.

"people experience time differently" - that was one powerful quote

😂❤❤yes sir patriot. Youth in IT sector should work 100 hours a week and 24 hours in a day. Get low paid and live like a beggar. CEO kids get all the money from every employee salary cut. To enjoy happy life and preach success stories to the world.

Narayan Murthy is not alone in thinking this way. What he said sums up the mentality of Indian corporate leaders at the top level. A lot of retirements need to happen to create better working conditions for the youth.

When work becomes life, life becomes hard work.

Then what, all the taxes still go into the pockets of corrupt politicians. India is not a poor country, but tax paid by hard workers is not reaching back in the form of development, instead it makes the politicians rich, their families stay abroad in best standard of living, and the tiny bit of tax being used, is for minority appeasement, providing free electricity, gas, food to people, that contribute nothing in return.

ALWAYS LEAVE OFFICE ON TIME 1. Work is a never-ending process. It can never be completed. 2. Interest of a client is important, so is your family. 3. If you fall in your life, neither your boss nor client will offer you a helping hand; your family and friends will. 4. Life is not only about work, office and client. There is more to life. You need time to socialize, entertain, relax and exercise. Don't let life be meaningless. 5. A person who stays late at the office is not a hardworking person. instead he/she is a fool who does not know how to manage work within the stipulated time. He/She is inefficient and incompetent in his work. 6. You did not study hard and struggle in life to become a machine. 7. If your boss forces you to work late, he/she may be ineffective and have a meaningless life too; so forward this to him her.

I believe strongly that this person established a slave factory sitting on tax free land, cheating with visa process, lecturing innocent. More slaves work he will get rich. He has not produced any ground breaking product in India but just slaves working for West. Why not a single AI tool in healthcare, science or in any field? We are top software professionals but all AI is from US or Europe, this makes me sick.

there is a big difference in working in a factory/shop for 40-70 hours a week as an employee or working the same for your own business. i worked as a cnc operator in Romania in a cable company and schedule was 40 hours a week in 3 shifts,extra hours were only available as a double shift. Used to work 16 hours per day at least 2 times a week. It was a mess for me,after a while I started to lack motivation,was always tired,after 4 years i had to quit or else i felt like i wanted to shoot myself.

Working more than 55 -60 hours a week is only for people who don't value family life, their children and dont care about their health. Working beyond 60 hours are for those who hates their personal life, selfish, who are aiming only for positions and those who want to lead a company with a wrong leadership. They could be impotent, and dont for sure have a good sex life. No romance in their hearts and sees a family life as just a role to play in the society for other social benefits. Moreover how many individuals working beyond 10 hours a day have become successful? Surely not anyone who values family life and cares for one another. The more you work for another person the more sick you become and hence get long term illness which would benefit the hospital sector. Let the owners and other so called leaders/bosses work beyond 60-70 hours and let the employees working upto 50-55 hours a week. Thats best for all and thats the best for a strong healthy India. 😊

A CEO works for himself while an employ working for the CEO gets only a fraction of what he gains for the company, so why should an employ overwork?

Logic is simple .. 20 years ago package was 2.75L per year and even today freshers are receiving similar packages , so money is going to Murthy sir pocket

It's never about how long or short you work. It's all about the value you bring to your organization and you. It's true the only way to make it is to enjoy and love what you do.

In fact in India employees in many Indian and MNCs work more than 16 hours a day. Attending office for 12 HRS ist and more than 4 hrs on-line after reaching home. It's worst employment scenario in India.

Infosys bills humans at a cheap rate to American companies, so every hour worked will benefit Infosys. If he may, he will bill 24 hours to his clients. Infosys has not created a single product which is of use to mankind except for selling Indians for cheaper rate

As a fresher, I worked with one of Infosys' competitors in 2015, night shift, one way cab only no night allowance and minimum 2-2.5 hour commute both ways. My take home was 13,500 p.m. One of my cousins just graduated and just went in for a walk in interview in the same company in a more or less simlar kind of role to get a feel of interviews since hes fresher too, the salary is still the same 😂😂😂😂😂 the entire industry wants cheap coders thats it.

Sleep - 8 hour's Refreshing (Lavatory, Brushing, Bathing, Dressing etc.) - 1 hour Health & Fitness - 1 hour Mealtime (Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner) - 1.5 hour's Commute to Work & Home - 2 hour's Work - 8 hour's Family Interaction - 0.5 hour Entertainment - 2 hour's

In India officially everyone calls 40hours per week, but on demand with number of work load so many in IT industries are working more than that up to 58 to 60 hours not even paid for it.

CEOs will agree because they won't have to work this many hours. Lets see if any employees also agree

I would rather not work then work 70 hours a week. Life is not about only work. That too in peanuts in the name of salary.

70 hours of working is possible only when it's backed by good pay. Infosys is one of the worst paying companies and yet they have the audacity to demand us to work for so long. Labour laws in India should be strictly reinforced to safeguard an employee's physical as well as mental health 😢

As a guy working in corporate for quite some time now always remember you dont owe anything to your company , try to work exact hours, take your leaves and work for what you are paid for.

Sitting in a conditioned room and working for one’s own wealth may be the true propellant for a 70 Hr week. However for them who know that even after working for 70 or more hrs they will be thrown out and have very lil to sustain after 60 years, it is hard to stop being disappointed.

Workers in my packaging unit work for 48 hrs in a week and i feel as if they are bonded labourers. I never encourage them to work overtime or on sundays...not even one Sunday in entire yr. How anyone can dare to suggest or demand their workers to work for 70 hrs in a week. I myself work for 5 to 7 hrs in a week and built as successful business from scratch with almost zero capital. I am obviously not as successful as someone who wants his employees to keep working 70 hrs in a week. And i don't wish to be successful by destroying others life.

This can work if every company fire their whole HR department, replace it with AI and display earrings for every employee in real time

It’s not about the number of hours. It’s about the quality of the work and outcome. We cannot generalise taking some exceptional example for the bigger population. Please remember any drastic shift comes with drastic imbalance. Agree the fun in the workplace will lead to better productivity… however it is short lived and it can be executed for the towards important deadlines or critical client delivery. Nothing can replace the productivity when the employees have good work life balance.

All the people you mentioned who worked more hours have significant shares in the company. In other words, they have skin in the game. What incentives do employees have? What backups do they have, especially when they can be fired in a second. ?. Do any company in India have atleast 2-3 months severance payment on termination ?

Fold hands, bow down to touch feet, write books , feature in motivational videos ......just to build a brand image everything to keep bringing in the money...dollar pound and what-not.....such humble down to earth people....they are working even in their sleep so that nation prospers. True gems ....cadbury gems.

Here's an alternate thought: the Indian youth needs to spend 70+ hours being productive. This includes work, health and fitness, side projects, learning new skills, networking, and building relationships. Far too much time is wasted online, mindlessly scrolling when you could be building yourself. The concept of slaving away at a computer for hours only to plop on the couch to Netflix is soul-crushing.

Perfectly elaborated Palki. It's a pleasure to listen to you.

Not everyone dreams of being a CEO. As a human we have forgotten that life has other priorities. And it should be a choice.

Narayan murti should also talk about the wedges since the increase in a ceo's salary since 2003 is record-breaking more than 50 times of what it used to be back then and for freshers the package in 2003 was 2.8Lpa where as in 2023, it's 3.6lpa. He gotta talk about money which puts food on the table.

The reason work Productivity is low is because companies are making employees work more than 70 Hrs. More Hrs is not equal to more productivity. Productive and good environment is equal to more productivity

I already work 70 hours a week, but I'm only required to do it every other week (half the year). I don't mind it, but I would feel differently if i was required to do that every week, that would be downright insane. I did do that for 3 years while training for my job (70 hours/week every week), but I got through it because I knew it was temporary and not permanent. If I owned my own business I would probably be comfortable working upwards of 100 hours a week, but it's different when you're building your own dream vs. working for someone else.

I have a lot of respect for Narayan Murthy. He might have put in a lot of effort in the early days of Infosys, working very long hours, as Sudha Murthy mentioned. However, there's a difference between working hard for your own company and expecting employees to work 70 hours a week. Narayan Murthy knew that if Infosys became successful, he would be the owner. But as employees, even if we work tirelessly, there's uncertainty about whether the company will reward us or let us go when it achieves success. That's why I strongly disagree with his statement.

Already employers are making us work 16 hours a day. And Saturdays also. Managers' get the itch to call for a meeting at 05:30pm. These cruel masters want to destroy our family life while they enjoy family life.

Smart work is better than long hours of work. In European countries now they are following 4 days working week with Friday, Saturday & Sunday as holidays.

From experience, currently Indian IT companies make employees work 60 hours against legal 45 hours, with no additional remuneration. For me logic of 70 hours would be that the employee dies working by 40 years of age and then his family can get insurance of let say 2 crores. The government, bankers, developers and hospitals can become rich by grabbing the 2 crore for taxes, bills and loans. The dead employee wife and kids can then continue the cycle.

Employees: Work for 70hrs a week for what ? Infosys: So that company gets more money and you get a middle finger 😂

India should strictly enforce labour laws. So that these rich Capitalist can't exploit the poor

Well said 🎉🎉 we need to ask Narayan Murthy ji to change the education system of India where workforce is not manufactured instead , it is passion driven. Then, the youth won’t work just for 70 hours. They will work 120+ with ease.. Hai Himmat????

Can Mr Moorthy's company asked any american or europuan employee to sat extra hours or called them without prior intimation in weekend ? If he wanted to compare productivity with forigners then why not he want to compare other factors like compensation, labour laws , work personal life balance and other facilities they get ?

People say stupid things, but when they're rich, they're audible. Same goes for Narayan Murthy

I think Indians are smart enough and realised that it is only useful to spend 8 hrs every day to work for company and should work for themselves the remaining hours to succeed individually

Narayan sir is a successful person. He is right in his perception. Youth of Bharat , when it comes to passion we don't see the time.. probably we work mentally 24 hours. Passion doesn't define time...work passionately n u have your peace of attainment, your purpose of life.

Did not expect such a statement from Mr Murthy. The way IT has changed the youth of India is great till it remained rooted. The moment we skip our limit its going to make our country another money minded economy that goes away from its base culture. High time people understand how much is enough and enjoy life and spiritual aspect of being an Indian. This mother land has the power to satisfy all if the needs are directional and reasonable.

I agree. Work 70 hours a week. Pay 12 to 30% in income tax, 18% GST. Spend up to 10% of income of your children’s education. Get no pension, no retirement plans from companies. Have no family life. Finally India would become a top performing economy with living dead zombies. 😅😂

salary?

Excellent reporting here and exceptional journalism! Keep up the phenomenal job.

First they should compensate for the hours that they are already working . INFY pays 500 CR of Indian Money in dividend every year to Narayan Murthys daughter who is sitting in uk doing nothing and here in India starting salaries of engineers are a joke .

Even i worked like this all my life but got nothing or not much because at crucial points in career, bosses played dirty, colleagues played politics. The only thing i got is poor health, little money due to hypertension created by these crooks mentioned above.😢😢😢

No promotions, extra hours of work, no leaves are given , no salary hike and the talent pool is slipping through the cracks. Look at the perks given to Indian employees and the ones in abroad. How many CEO's took pay cuts during covid ? Companies should focus on reduction of unemployment and fill the gaps rather than laying off. These are also the companies contributing towards unemployment.With so much of issues at hand, now someone says work 70 hours ? Insane

Thank God I left India. I work 35 hours a week in the UK, no micro-management, promoted based on merit and talent. My company is going to trial 4 day work week next year, and I hope it will be successful. I suffered a lot to get to Uk and be in this position, but my children will be in much better place.

If I have to work for 70hrs a week instead of working for that particular company Il work on myself and start my own business😂 and if someone even works for 70hrs a week are you going to pay them according to the hours they have worked😂

As one of the largest employer first find way to pay well and respect the work and then whole youth will be ready to happily contribute. Its easy to lecture as a CEO but the situation of an employee in maintaining balance between his personal and professional life has to be taken into consideration.

He only says that because he isnt young and doesnt have to work those hours. Such a gruelling workweek would kill the youth hence the increase of health problems in the young. He wants progress at the cost of the mental health and well being of young people who are not paid overtime or protected by labour laws in this country. Shabaash Sir! As if corporates are not already bleeding the youth of this country dry👏👏👏

I think the reason a majority of Indians feel over worked and underpaid is due to the fact that they are not trained properly in their respective fields. None of the subjects we study in engineering translates to the actual work we do in the company. In such scenario, most companies give a 3 month training crash course. How can one be productive if he is not trained properly? So, a majority have to overwork to complete the assigned tasks. If they are properly trained, they do not have to overwork. Majority of Indian companies, have foreign clients who are billed based on the number of employees. So no matter the skillset, people are somehow having jobs somewhere or the other.

What is overlooked is that most entrepreneurs have fun while working because the results serve them with most profits whether in terms of capital or overall satisfaction. But a common employee has no real motivation except his monthly pay check which in most cases does not even do justice to his normal work hours let alone extra

Agreed that all the entrepreneurs have worked super hard . But difference here is they earn in millions and billions!!! It's "thier" company that they worked for so hard. While the meagerly paid employees have "settled" in life with whatever salary they get after taxes. The company can kick them out any time. Their life is about work , play, family, friends. If employees also start working 70hrs a week, all they will have is work. Many will quit and fall back to govt jobs..or maybe leave IT altogether, or maybe fall back to preparing for govt jobs

India is his country also so mr murthy should donate his entire income and entire company and all his wealth and work 70 hours in a week in another company

IN SHORT-they want legal bonded labourers for their companies without paying any incentives and keeping huge profits themselves

Quality over quantity is something that will make India great again.

There are some problem while applying this 70hours week to India- 1. India's industry is mostly service oriented. That means we provide service to western brands, so the harder India and Indians work, better for a growth of a Western brand(and not for India) 2. Now coming to companies like Infosys, they are absolute level hypocrites where salaries of hard-working entry level engineers remained the same since last 20 years(ie 3 Lakh per annum), while the salaries of CEO and the executives increased multifold every year 60 crore), which is frustrating for all the hard working engineers. More than that, engineers get zero percent increment in the yearly appraisal. 3. Now, when the same engineers go to USA, they have to work less and they get 50 times more salary for the same amount of work. 4. If you don't respect your engineers and don't pay them well and create an environment for innovation, why would anyone stay back in a country? 5. Not to mention there are millions other unsolvable problems in India like pollution, pathetic infrastructure, Caste-based reservation. Combining all these factors, it's very demotivating for people to put an effort in the country's brand value and development. PS: I worked at Amazon Singapore as an Engineering manager. When I was in India till 2018, My salary was 24LPA and now here in Singapore my salary is around 3crore per annum. I work around 30-40 hours a week and do much more innovative work. I have personally seen many HRs ridiculing engineers in a Infosys, and demeaning them! Until and unless India fixes above basic problem, don't expect people to struggle for a country! People have their own life too and there are other countries providing a better life, way way better than India! As an Indian I love my country, but I will not work for sure under these hypocrites!

It should actually come down from 40 to atleast 30 so that people can focus on their family and personal time. This 70-80 hour per week is prehistoric thought process

So Ola CEO wants his drivers to work 10-11 hours a day. Guys that's dangerous.

We need Narayan Murthy to ensure fresher salaries are in tune with at least the inflation and not stuck in 2010😢

Most Indian managers want their teams to participate in extracurricular activities like marathon run or put up social media posts about the company or keep giving meaning demos and presentations. Most Indian companies lack vision, they are usually just executing someone else’s vision, you can get motivated to work hard in these situations. Obviously all this has to be done without impacting normal deliverables.

Once companies give profit sharing to employees then no problem to work 70 hours.

for the first time, I agree with Palki ji. Thank you for speaking out for us madam.

Yes. It impacts health..both physical and mental health. We have less time for workout, meditation or spending quality time with family, especially our children. The government should put a strict rules on these corporate who suck the life out of their employees and ties them in the organisation, leaving little to no room for the personal development, family time and other recreation activities.

If my compensation is as competitive as those CEO's, I'd be happy to put 140+ hrs in work..😅

I noticed thwre are people who are defenfing the tycoons, accusing those who know their own worth or love their life as " Lazy or mediocre." Im guessing they are either have Slave Mentality who are accustomed in their way of life" or just paid bots. Of course, itcan be some rich people commenting to discourage their slaves to fight them by saying" We work long hours too."

As a call center employee with 40 hour workweek but working in night shift, even those 8 hours feels exhausting and old uncle saying working 70 hours a week because you have to compete with China. Well I am not competing with anyone. I am okay with 40 hour work week.

Let's work more hours so that GDP remains the same and the excess be filled up in politicians pockets.

Productivity will not be solved by working long, we need a good system. My first job was in a startup where we used to work for 70hrs a week but most of the work was trial and error because there was no expertise among our team and company didn’t had the budget to hire someone senior who can train and lead us. This continued for about 10 months and company started to pressure us to complete the project but we couldn’t, I was first to leave which created more pressure on my other colleagues, again after 3 months another one resigned eventually company closed the project and this department

we are already doing it but not getting recognized for that

After Covid the IT culture has changed a lot, work from home is very worst, there is no interval even for lunch, we have to take in between meeting schedules. And log off time has no limit , like morning 8 we login and log off will be night 10.30pm but call and meetings and work load make us to extend up to next day early morning 2am. Our health got impacted a lot. Can’t spend time with family too. Sometimes we feel bad of having good salaries .

If I had my way, it would be a 4 to 6 hours daily, 5 days a week! Also daily sports and fitness activities would be promoted!🙂🙃

Why can't corporates create 3 shifts per day and still work for same 5 days week with 120 hour's?

One thing i do know, hard work pays. No one works hard and regret they are successful. Those who work least do regret failure as their end game.

70hrs a week makes sense when you are motivated towards doing it. I remember I used to put in 12 hrs a day during a brief period in my job, but that was because the work was good. If you are getting low quality, frustrating work day-in day-out, how do you think would you get the motivation to put in those extra hours,, keeping in mind the fact that Indian employers want the maximum amount of work for the bare minimum compensation. Its easy for people like Mr. Murthy to say people should work 70 hrs or 100 hrs a week, but they must understand that they were able to pull-off those hours because they were having fun working towards their dreams, the average youth in country like India is working to earn a living, its a question of surviving "tomorrow". There's only a handful who want to build their own businesses and they should be putting in those hours, but for the rest I feel otherwise.

Many companies where CEOs articulate for longer working hours have a toxic work culture . As rightly indicated, productivity is more important than longer working hours . Employees are not machines . What about their social obligations , obligations towards family , parents , society etc and how will some one find time for discharging social obligations if 70 hour week is the norm . Will they increase the wages proportionately ?. In India , if you consider travelling time , an employee needs to spend at least 16 hours a day to work and commute considering six days a week work for a 70 hour week work schedule . In such cases, the employee will be left with only 8 hours a day which is bad . Rich and successful people can tell anything which suits their convenience, however impractical it may be , which needs to be ignored . Every CEO may be looking for ways and means for exploitation and 'fun at work place' to be viewed from that perspective . Yes , increased working hours are possible if work from home (WFH) is given as an option for few days a week and in my view that may not impact productivity .

Narayana Murthy Sir, please explore your vision lens, people in technical ship management in India on an average have always spent minimum 80 hrs a week.

Narayanan Murti should tell all the defaulters to pay loan on time.

Will we be compensated for 70 hours as per international pay standards. For the past 10 years i have always been working more than my shift hours, without any compensation for the extra hours. If i try leaving as per my shift schedule, i am threatened that I have no work ethics and I am not cooperating. It's a taboo even to raise a query in this issue, the Boss gets seriously offended and starts to behave and act negatively with you. Once i had a sudden medical emergency and was hospitalized It was not a planned one. I kept getting calls in the hospital about how fast I can join and when my medical emergency will finish. My phone was with my mother during that period and my Boss called on my phone and said to my mother and said Your son is very problematic, and this is unacceptable, he should have informed me beforehand and planned with me before disappearing with a medical emergency. What more can you expect from Indian CEOs and bosses who run the Indian service industry and serve their western bosses.

When are they suppose to enjoy childhood? 40 hours is too much.

work culture found in Indian post department; I want to simply post a envelope (with ham radio qsl card) to Germany, I checked nearby two post office near my area, unfortunately both were permanently closed. I was forced to go to GPO, long queues for various services (most of them were for non postal job), only one counter was there for issuing stamps, franking machine was simply out of order! waiting for 30 minutes & I got required stamps! staff were not at all bothered for public, they just wait for 6:00pm!!! Narayan Murtiji & Palkiji said quite true but what about willingness to work more???

As any good businessman should know, the biggest question is "Why should I care about 'YOUR' company? YOUR" So, unless the Indian IT companies start giving lakhs worth of shares under an employee's name, there is no real way to consider it as "MY" company in I which in should put a thoughtful effort by thinking extra and out of the box when I am out of office, trying to think how to take "MY" company to the top.

It is high time that labour laws should be scrutinized and implemented to positive socioeconomic benefits and nil exploitation

I am former infosys employee and i had punched in more than 70 hrs a week.. worked on weekends holodays and even applied leave and worked from home due to some micro management..and the leaves wrre earned leaves.. in return i got an tiltle good enployee with 1000 rupees voucher, anxiety,panic attacks, no interest in work..wish i had inherited some lands and buffalos from my ancestors.. in name of performance evaluation got 9 to 11 % but hikes were not given evey year , had to spent a lot for hospitals due to helath i 2:18 ssues.. my sincere request to all we work to live not vice versa .. imagine increasing the gdp of country but at cost of peoples happiness and life.. and if u are making people work 70 hrs a week then pay them good not 3 lpa. Else they will slaves for a whole life with bad health.. this mentality of leaders asking youngsters to be slaves needs to be stopped.and this is not the first time that Mr.murthy has said something like this he had once passrd commnet durimg corons thatvpeiple shud come to office and work and corona is just like other virsl fevers

The differences CEO working and Employee working is CEO works for his Company and Employee works for the company which might fire him soon or under pay him

Ask his son-in-law to work 100 hours a week so that UK economy will improve atleast a bit.

Once i established my own company then i will also work more than 110 hours a week!