Chetan Bhagat’s column – A little rest is also necessary to be ‘innovative’ at work | चेतन भगत का कॉलम: काम में ‘इनोवेटिव’ होने के लिए थोड़ा आराम भी जरूरी है

Chetan Bhagat, English novelist

On one side are the industry veterans, who are urging the youth to work 70 hours a week. On the other hand, the death of a 26-year-old employee of Ernst & Young (EY) due to workload has sparked outrage. Both the sides have their own supporters.

Those who advise to ‘work more’ believe that being young means working hard, building a career and contributing to the country. According to him, ‘work-life balance’ is for weak people. Why need good sleep or health when you can contribute more to the company’s profits?

The EY employee who died due to workload had cleared the CA exam, which only a small percentage of people are able to clear, and that too after several failed attempts. He was then pushed into a demanding job in a reputed multinational company.

According to her parents, whenever she returned home after working late at night, she was given more work. Being a CA, his work probably involved reading thousands of pages of documents and preparing reports. It’s a never-ending mountain of work.

It is not just about accountants. We recently saw the horrific case of RG Kar Hospital, where young doctors were working 36-hour shifts without sleep. IT managers, investment-bankers, consultants, salespeople, media professionals – these are just a few more examples of people whose work never ends. And in all this, if a junior employee’s workload increases, what should he do?

I remember an incident many years ago as an investment-banker. I went to Australia to do credit due diligence on a mining company. I wanted to set up a meeting with the finance manager. He said his last meeting was at 3:30 pm because at 4:30 pm – whatever it was – he left for home. And when it was their time, they went away in their self-driving boat.

The office building was right next to the Swan River, which runs through Perth. He never took his work home. And the mining company he worked for was doing well. Whereas at my banking job in Hong Kong, we used to work until 10 pm several days a week.

Similar work culture is prevalent in India also. Junior employees often do not go home before their seniors do. Seniors wait for their own and seniors to go home. The result is that everyone tries to show how dedicated they are to work by sitting in the office for long hours.

Remote-work technology has made things more complicated. Tools that were created to make life easier are now being used to ensure that you are always available for work and responding quickly.

The irony is that this has not made Indian companies any more productive, efficient or profitable than those in the world. Real wealth creation in any company comes from vision and innovation. It requires creativity and independence. People also need enough free time to think about new ideas.

One of the biggest time wasters in Indian companies is meetings. Honestly, has a meeting achieved anything that couldn’t have been achieved through a single message in the group? But no, corporates love meetings because they satisfy the egos of managers.

Indian companies also dislike innovation. Therefore no efforts are made to keep the junior employees in a happy, creative and independent mental state. If you can pay junior employees half their due salary and make them do the work of two people, an Indian manager sees this as a great success.

The competitive advantage of Indian companies – especially in the services sector – is almost always ‘cheap-labour’. To survive in corporates, many employees have started adopting the policy of ‘LBDN’, which means – ‘Look busy, do nothing!’ (These are the author’s own views)