Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy wants India’s youth to work for 70 hours a week to help India compete with countries like China. Forbes has come out with the “World’s Best Employers” report and among the top 15 best tech companies to work, none of them have a requirement to work for 70 hours a week.
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The recent conversion between Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy with former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai in a YouTube show divided netizens and drew sharp backlash from employees across India after Narayana Murthy mentioned that today’s youth must work for 70 hours a week to help India compete with developed countries like China.
Soon after the show aired, it became viral quickly with people highlighting that IT companies in India have simply become sweatshops where employees are expected to work for 70 hours a week but the salary is kept the same. Many pointed out that the starting salary package of Infosys is still Rs 3.5 lakh per annum and hasn’t changed much in decades despite inflation, pandemic and general increase of costs of living.
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On the other hand, a lot of people highlighted that working for 70 hours a week will drain any employee physically, mentally and the person will have no personal time for family and self improvement. Considering most IT companies in India follow a 5-days work in week rule, this means employees may have to stay 14 hours in the office. Considering the travel time for work, anyone would easily spend around 16 hours a day at work, barely leaving 5-6 hours for sleep.
Narayana Murthy claimed that the work productivity of Indians are among the lowest in the world and unless Indians improve productivity, reduce corruption in government departments and reduce delays in bureaucratic decision-making, India may not be able to compete and use the potential of the youngsters to the fullest.
77-years old Murthy said in the show, “So therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I’d like to work 70 hours a week.’”
Now, coming to the question- is working for 70 hours a week the only way to be at the top? Forbes has come out with the “World’s Best Employers” report and among the top 15 best tech companies to work, none of them have a requirement to work for 70 hours.
According to Forbes World’s Best Employers report, the 15 best tech companies of 2023 has mandates the maximum official work hours for employees at 45 hours a week. Going by Reddit posts, in some crucial situations for few roles where work pressure is more, the maximum work hours that employees usually clocked for a 5-days work week was around 52.
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Here’s the list of 15 Best Tech Companies Of 2023, according to Forbes.
- Samsung Electronics: Official work hours are 45 hours a week.
- Microsoft: The minimum requirement is around 40 hours a week.
- Alphabet: 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.
- Apple: 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. Some employees may work for less than 8 hours a day while few may have to put in around 10 hours, depending on the role.
- IBM: 8 hours a day.
- Adobe: 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.
- Cisco Systems: According to a statement, “Working hours should not exceed the maximum set by local by law. Further, a workweek should not be more than 60 hours per week, including overtime, except in emergency or unusual situations, and all overtime must be voluntary. Workers should not work more than 6 consecutive days without at least one day of rest.”
- Dell Technologies: 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.
- PayPal: 8 hours a day. However, some employees reported that its usual to work around 9 hours a day.
- Sony: 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week.
- Intel: 40 hours a week is the minimum expectation.
- Siemens: Anywhere between 40 to 50 hours a week as per requirement.
- Amazon: A fixed minimum of 40 hours a week is required.
- Netflix: 8 hours or less and there’s no 9 to 5 schedule.
- Oracle: 8 hours or less with a minimum requirement of 20 hours a week.
