IT employees in India see poor work-life balance

The Indian IT industry is grappling with a paradox of long work hours and stagnant productivity.

This conundrum has been exacerbated by a recent comment by Narayana Murthy, Founder of Infosys, advocating for a 70-hour workweek to enhance global competitiveness. However, data from Xpheno suggested that IT employees in India are already putting in extended hours, averaging around 45 to 50 hours per week. This surpasses the conventional 40-hour workweek, highlighting the industry’s existing demand for extended working hours to meet stringent project deadlines.

The report saw 58% of the respondents working in the IT industry in India reporting an average to poor work-life balance, higher than the global average of 40%. Employees voiced excessive working hours hindering their problem-solving abilities, and the strain from long working hours, lengthy commutes, infrastructural challenges, and work stress is leading to fatigue consequently impeding overall productivity. To top it off, the IT industry is seeing one of the slowest growths this fiscal year, which leads to a slowdown in hiring new employees to help relieve the tension and strain.

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Fortune India, reporting on the situation, has advocated for a restructured approach to measuring overall employee productivity. The call is for a shift in focus from merely tracking the number of hours worked to a more comprehensive evaluation of overall productivity. With a major part of the productivity increase in India attributed to the surge in demand for tech services, there is a need to re-assess the productivity instead of calculating the hours worked.