Afte Narayana Murthy, the Infosys co-founder, the L&T chairman SN Subhrahmanyam has gone viral on social media after his statement that “Employees must work 90 hours a week”. He shared this suggestion during an employee meeting wherein he was asked why L&T is still asking employees to work on Saturdays. To this, he said that he regrets he is not able to make his team members work on Sunday as well. If he can make employees work on Sundays, he will be more happy. Because he works on Sundays.
Mr. Subramanyan asked the employees when they were getting on taking time off, what they do sitting at home, and how long husband and wife can stare at each other. So, get to the officer and begin your work.
To support his statement further, he cites his interaction with a Chinses person who claimed that China could beat the USA. According to this person, Chinese people work 90 hours a week whereas US people work just 50 hours a week. So that’s the answer here. If you wish to reach the top of the world, you should be ready to work 90 hours a week.
This statement was made in an internal meeting, a clip of which has gone viral on different social sites. An L&T employee shared that the chairman made this remark on a lighter note. The company officially release the statement to CNBC-TV18 defending the comment basing it on the company’s vision and commitment to nation-building.
The company’s spokesperson said, “We believe this decade is for India. This time, the nation needs collective dedication and effort to ensure growth and realize our shared vision of becoming a developed nation. Mr. Subramanyan’s comment on 90-hour work showcases this larger goal, emphasizing that exceptional result requires exceptional efforts.”
However, this comment has not been taken positively by Netizens. It has again started a year-old work-life balance debate with founders like Narayan Murthy, Elon Musk, and social media users.
A few months back, Infosys founder Narayan Murthy experienced backlash for his opinion of a 70-hour work week. He said “India’s work productivity is among the lowest worldwide. My request is to all the youngsters to say, this is my nation and I want to work 70 hours a week.”
While L & T Chairman SH Subramanyan’s comment on 90hr work has made him a talking point like Infosys’s Narayan Murthy earlier commend, he also works on Sunday, this fact cannot be ignored that there is a huge difference between his salary and that of the company’s employees.
In the last financial year, SH Subramanyan took home around 51 crores, which includes 3.6 crores of his salary, 1.6 crores in perquisites, 10.5 crores as retirement advantages, and 32 crores in commission.
On the other hand, the average salary of employees at the company in 2024 was 9.5 lakh. There was a raise of 1.32% in the salary. There were a total of 59,018 employees as of March 2024.
The Chairman’s payout increased by 43% as compared to the past year. In terms of ratio, the employee salary stood at 534.57.
Amid the heated debate when Narayan Murthy advocated for a 70-hour work week for youngsters, the Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Namita Thapar said “The situation for company employees and common employees is quite different.” In her statement, she said, “Founders and high stakeholders, making tons of money can think of working 24 hours a day. But for the common man and woman, there should be certain numbers of hours to work. No doubt, when there are deliverables, people need to work longer hours. But it should not be non-stop. “
Harsh Goenka, the popular industralists has not agreed with Mr Subramanyan’s comment on 90hr work. He took a dig saying the day off should be made a mythical concept.
The renowned actress Deepika Padukone has also shared her view on Mr Subramanyan’s comment. She said it is shocking to see such people in senior positions giving such statements.