Killing With Excessive Work
Commentary
By Aryan Katiyar
In recent times, we witnessed a few embarrassing deaths in India owing to workplace pressure. The most prominent case was that of an Ernst&Young (EY) employee, which highlights the well-being of an employee being ignored. It is said that the top companies look after their employees superficially, but it is transparently not. It is clearly evident all that the company wants is its profits, as none of the officials from EY attended the funeral of their employee who dedicated her life to serving the company. This has sparked a huge criticism of the so-called “Hustle Culture” prevailing within the country, where companies have motivated the workforce by the factor of ‘giving it all’ for the welfare of the company.
This situation calls for a reform in the labour laws where employees are left ‘burnt out’ to fulfill their tasks and duties, leaving them on the edge of compromising their personal life. Why do we need a revision to the laws? Aren’t employees also deserving of leisure time just like their bosses? But to bring a reform is going to be challenging, at least in India. Imagine ignoring the call of your boss at any time of the day. Contrastingly, In Australia, “The Right to Disconnect” was a boon to, its employees. However, if the same was raised in India it would become a mere paper lying in the dustbin with a bunch of rejected CVs.
These incidents led to protests from several parts of the country. Over 500 employees of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), raised their concerns about the toxic work culture prevailing within the organisation. In Karnataka, IT employees raised issues to end labour law exemption, at the Freedom Park. However, these protests, especially in Karnataka, seem to be clearly ignored.
The question that has to be raised is why all of a sudden workplace environment has become the talk of the town. According to a Business Standard report, Jini Gopinath, Chief Psychology Officer at YourDOST, said that “the shift in workplace dynamics, evolution of remote and hybrid work models, have had an impact on the employees.” Going by all this, the suggestion of 70-hour work in a week by the well-known technocrat Narayana Murthy has been taken sincerely by a few private enterprises.
Hard work always pays off, whatever you do,” said Dustin Lynch. But ‘hard’ needs to be redefined in the context of how much work is hard work. Hard work may not have killed anybody, but excessive work seems to be on a killing spree.
