Thousands of funny memes and outraged social media posts followed in the wake of a viral video of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Chairman SN Subrahmanyan, wherein he could be seen advocating a 90-hour work week for his employees and suggesting that though he could not force them, but his workmen on their own volition should work on Sundays also. For added effect, Mr Subrahmanyan could be heard saying: “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can wives stare at their husbands? Go to the office and start working.”

After Henry Ford introduced the forty-hour week in 1926, the hundred-hour work week ~ the Indian employers’ ideal ~ went out of fashion, yet industry honchos still pine for the days gone by. Recently, Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy had called for a 70-hour work week ~ a sentiment echoed by Elon Musk of Tesla, Jack Ma of Ali Baba, and many others. Motivation for the slave-driving instincts of business leaders can be easily understood; Subrahmanyan draws a salary (including benefits) of Rs.51 crore, Musk weighs in at US$56 billion and Jack Ma at US$2 billion. Employees of these companies are not so fortunate; the median wage of L&T employees was a mere Rs.9.55 lakh.

Advertisement

Till recently, young urban professionals or yuppies, were the envy of Indian youth, because yuppies drew unimaginably high salaries, worked hard, and partied even harder. Their employers offered in-house catering, gyms and places where the employee could relax ~ all provided with the sole, but hidden, aim of making the employee spend all his waking hours in the company’s premises. Consultancy firms, private equity firms, investment banks, law firms ~ all were guilty of promoting this brand of corporate culture. Recently, the tragic death of a brilliant and talented young woman, through overwork and work-related tensions, focussed an unforgiving spotlight on the fault lines of corporate culture ~ whatever the employee did was not enough, the boss always wanted more.

Employees had to make a Faustian bargain; in lieu of salary, employees had to sell their body and soul to the company; targets assigned were not difficult, but impossible, with yesterday being the deadline for most tasks. Work-life balance was seldom mentioned, and almost never practised. Corporate leaders, the labour ministry and even parents, determinedly shut their eyes to an ecosystem where employees lived only to work and not vice versa. Soaring unemployment, particularly amongst educated youth, has shrunk options for job-seekers.

Resultantly, the employers’ velvet gloves have come off ~ perks have all but disappeared and corporate salaries for lower-level employees have stagnated or come down. For the present, the adage that private companies pay twice the salary, but make a person do the job of four persons needs modification; employees should be thankful if private companies pay them on time and make them do the work of only five persons. The global meltdown of 2007- 08 showed a mirror to the lifestyle of corporate executives; Gurgaon (now Gurugram) and Bangalore (now Bengaluru) witnessed a large number of defaults on credit cards and housing loans of corporate executives, in dicating that corporate employees were living on the edges, their flashy lifestyle mostly funded by loans and credit cards.

Even today, with their tight schedules, corporate executives have to live near their workplaces, which are mostly in the toniest neighbourhoods, with exorbitantly high rents. Income-tax, and money required to keep up with the Joneses, takes care of the rest of the employee’s salary, leaving him with no savings. After the meltdown, private jobs lost some of their sheen, and youngsters again started trying for government jobs. However, with soaring unemployment, exam paper leaks, and the virtual freeze on government recruitment, there are few employment opportunities left for Indian youth. Moreover, corporate toxicity has now infected Government offices; cost-cutting ensures that support staff is at the minimum. The ill-trained contractual staff renders subpar service to their seniors and the public.

Moreover, a centralised command structure ensures that no discretion is left with lower-level functionaries. To add to the employees’ woes, posts at the top are deliberately kept vacant or incumbents are given extension after extension ~ shutting out promotional avenues for juniors. Young men and women, coming straight from college, join large corporates with stars in their eyes; they want to be the new Brian Niccol, the recently joined CEO of Starbucks, who commutes 1,000 miles to work from his home in Newport Beach, California, to the company’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington, three days a week, by the company’s private jet, or at least like Ravi Kumar Singisetti, the CEO of Cognizant, who drew a salary of Rs.186 crore in 2023. The burnout rate for corporate executives being exceptionally high, few will realise their dreams, some will fall by the wayside, some others will not be able to resist their temptation, while dealing with humongous sums of money and property, and like the Indian-American Rajat Gupta, the erstwhile CEO of McKinsey & Co, and a co-founder of the Indian School of Business, be hauled up for unethical behaviour.

The public mostly sees the rosy side of corporate culture ~ ultra-modern buildings housing corporate offices, smartly dressed men and women roaming around in fashionable malls and pubs, spending money as if there was no tomorrow. The toxic culture of corporate workplaces rarely comes out in the open ~ employees are bound by nothing short of an omerta ~ rat on us, and you are out of the corporate world. Sometimes, pushed to the brink, employees reveal shocking instances of mistreatment; after a showdown with management, workers at an Amazon facility in the UK told the BBC about “severe” work conditions, where even their toilet breaks were timed. An Amazon spokesman clarified “(Amazon) also encourages coaching to help employees improve if they are not meeting their performance goals” which is reminiscent of Chinese-speak about ‘re-education.’

Experience of Amazon employees in the US and India was no different, where an oath was administered to employees to not take toilet or water breaks till targets were met. Perhaps, employers should realise that they are dealing with young men and women, not animals ~ though a conscientious owner will never overwork his charges, the way employees are made to slog in blue-chip companies. Allowance also needs to be made for the fact that a significant proportion of corporate employees, hail from smaller cities, and so have a tough time adjusting to the metro culture. The inevitable result is a stressed and unhappy existence for employees ~ with no option of calling time. With the Labour Department in deep slumber, or in cahoots with wealthy employers, it is up to the political leadership to prevent exploitation of young men and women at the hands of big corporates.

Yet politicians are often found wanting in sensitivity; commenting on the unfortunate death of the young corporate employee, Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister and also Minister for Corporate Affairs, herself an employee of one of the Big Four in her youth, said: “… a woman who had studied CA well, died unable to cope up with the pressure. Families should teach that no matter what you study and how far you go in life, you should have the inner strength from within to handle stress,” which seemed to suggest that the young woman died due to work pressure because she was not taught to take stress. After adverse comments by Opposition politicians, the FM denied that she had indulged in victim blaming.

Sadly, till now nothing has been heard from the high-powered Government agencies like the National and State Human Rights Commissions, who had promised justice to the victim and just desserts for the corporate employer. Perhaps, Government agencies, like the proverbial thanedar, take note only when things go irretrievably wrong, and quietly disappear when the furore dies down. Be that as it may, the ball is squarely in the Government’s court; at the very least, guidelines need to be finalized to lay down working hours and compulsory off days, with strict penalties for infringements. Perhaps, what the US labour leader James P Hoffa said about the US: “Wage theft, worker rights and workplace discrimination should not be swept under the rug. The United States cannot have a functional economy where all the gains go to the corporate class while all the pain goes to regular workers,” applies equally to India.