Infosys founder Narayana Murthy has sparked a debate online after he advocated for a 70-hour work per week. Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal also came to his defence and called for every Indian to go all in and build in one generation what other countries have built over many generations.
Earlier, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, had directed his employees to work 100 hours per week. Similarly, China’s richest man Jack Ma had made a similar call to work from 9 am to 9 pm.
However, social media users made their opinion clear that their pay should be increased if the company expects them to work for more time.
Taking to X, popular film producer Ronnie Screwvala wrote, “Boosting productivity isn't just about working longer hours. It's about getting better at what you do - Upskilling, having a positive work environment and fair pay for the work done. Quality of work done > clocking in more hours.”
“When the world is shifting to 4 days a week work culture, @Infosys is talking about almost 7 days a week. As an employer, it always makes sense to extract more and more from employees but how about their mental health and family lives?” shared another X user.
A third user opined, “Ya sure you sell Indian youngster in USA for 120$/Hour and pay 120$/month as full-time employee without paying any overtime. You are the world’s No1 employee abuser!”
“Unofficially most of the IT folks are already clocking more than 70 hours a week. He just wants to legitimize it,” shared another user.
However, a section of people agreed with Murthy and said that the GenZ generation should work harder. CEO of Bombay Shaving Company, Shantanu Deshpande had said in a LinkedIn post that freshers should work 18 hours per day.