An INSEAD graduate questioned the 90-hour workweek narrative promoted by L&T chairman SN Subrahmanyan in five pointed questions directed at corporate India. Many people have responded favorably to Akshat Kharbanda's incisive inquiries on LinkedIn, raising issues about the reasonableness and equity of such demands.
 
"Are you paying me for 90 hours if I give you 90? Promotions? Fairness? Or 'patriotism' lip service?" he said, "Let's emphasize people over optics and outcomes over hours."

Subrahmanyan started the debate by arguing in favor of required saturday workdays and joking, "What do you do sitting at home? How much time can you spend staring at your wife? Comparing it to China's purported 90-hour work ethic, he asserted that it was essential to their economic supremacy.
 
But, as Kharbanda and others pointed out, he made no mention of whether such requests would entail job security or overtime compensation.
 
Kharbanda's criticism extended beyond concerns of rhetoric. He questioned the effectiveness of the overwork culture, asking, "How much of this work is truly value-adding, and how much is just performative busyness?"
 
He also questioned if the antiquated analogies to nations like china and singapore still held true in the context of contemporary India.
 
Nirmalya Kajuri, a professor at IIT Mandi, brought another level of complexity to the discussion by pointing out that while indian corporations frequently require 50–60 hours without compensation, many other nations reward experts for overtime.
 
"If india strictly implements overtime pay for 40+ hours of work, corporate bosses would suddenly champion work-life balance," he said. His posts, which received close to 400,000 views, brought attention to India's lax implementation of overtime regulations.
 
"When it comes to your development, your objectives, and significant results, hard effort counts. But working merely to satisfy unreasonable demands? "Neither sustainable nor efficient," Kharbanda wrote.
 
 
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Narayan murthy L&T

SIBY JEYYA

15/01/2025 09:42 AM