Long hours do not guarantee higher productivity

This is not the first time that industry leaders had to suffer social media backlash for their comments on long work hours. Discussions on exhaustive and toxic work environments and the need for proper work-life balance once again came to the fore.While Murthy urged for a 70-hour week and Subrahmanyam for a 90-hour week, International Labour Organisation in a report a few months back found that India is one of the most overworked countries globally, with its workforce putting in long hours per week.According to ILO, the majority of Indians – 51 per cent - work for 49 hours weekly. This put India in the second spot in the list of countries which make its employees work for long hours.However, in some of the highly developed countries like Germany the working hours are as low as 34.2 hours per week, Japan 36.6 hours, and Singapore 42.6 hours.While the studies usually take note of the time an employee stays at office as work hours, the long commuting time to the workplace is not considered. This decline increases after 55 hours of work that working anymore would be pointless, and employees who work 70 hours get the same amount of work done as those working 55 hours.The World Health Organization also finds that working long hours leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases by 42 per cent, stroke by 19 per cent and mental health issues, including burnout. Considering India’s GDP of $3.73 trillion, its GDP per hour worked is low at $8, placing it 133rd globally in terms of productivity.“Despite working for long hours, India is low on productivity globally.