A poor recipe for productivity

The prescription for higher labour productivity, proposed by a top business honcho of the country, and the support he received from a few others of his kind and stature shows how far removed India’s business leadership is from the realities of everyday work and life in our country. The remarks by the Chairman and Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro, S N Subrahmanyan, became viral not only because of their absurdity but also their crudity. He has urged employees to put in 90 hours of work every week and to even forgo weekends, and posed the poorly articulated question: “How long can you stare at your wife, how long can the wife stare at the husband?” That is an insensitive and condescending view of human relations in the family and is bad even with a pinch of humour. Some might even take it to be the big man’s low view of the way small lives, or even all lives, are spent.

Subrahmanyan’s recommendation goes against statistical truth and lived experience. Various surveys show that workers in Asia, and India, put in more hours in the workplace than workers in other parts of the world. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) ranks India 13th among the world's most overworked countries and second among countries with the highest rates of prolonged working hours. If the business leaders of the country think there is a need to squeeze more hours from their workers, there is profound ignorance and a lack of empathy at work. Productivity does not depend on the hours put in, but on their outcome, which, ironically, also depends on the time the workers don’t work. That includes the time they take to stare at the other person at home, care for the little persons there, and generally fare in the world outside the workplace. There is a balance between life and work, and they cannot be separated. If it is upset or disrupted, both the worker and the company will suffer.

India’s workers do not have the social security backing or welfare support they need and deserve. Women workers are especially vulnerable. Many are exploited, and working conditions are not always comfortable and healthy. The norms that govern work were won after long struggles. They are recognised by law and accepted as normal rights. It is a regressive mindset that questions them, and it is anybody’s guess if it is part of a greater social regression. Larsen and Toubro has been ranked high among the world’s best employers and the best in India in the past. The CMD’s thinking does not gel with those credentials. He should realise the value of Leisure Time and have the name of his company stand for that too.