Narayana Murthy Wants Indians To Work 60 Hours A Week For Economic Recovery Post COVID-19
Narayan Murthy, in a recent interview, shared his views on what businesses will have to do to recover from COVID-19 impact
COVID-19 has halted the entire world. The whole planet is under lockdown, self-isolating and saving themselves from the novel coronavirus. Kids are attending virtual classrooms from home, and many people are working from home.
Despite all of this, it's abundantly clear that the COVID-19 lockdown has caused a huge dent to the nation¡¯s economy. One that¡¯s going to leave a deep scar for years to come, many analysts believe.
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And more recently, Infosys co-founder and philanthropist Narayan Murthy, in a recent interview by ET now, shared his views about the lockdown, the impact it is having on not just the economy, but also companies. He shared a few suggestions that businesses could take once things get back on track post the end of lockdown on May 3.
Adopt 60 hours a week work regime
One of these was that people who are working in offices must take a pledge to work 60 hours a week, instead of 40 hours. He said, ¡°We should take a pledge that we will work ten hours a day, six days a week - as against 40 hours a week - for the next 2-3 years so that we can fast-track and grow the economy much faster.¡±
He also stated some steps the government should take to streamline the process, ¡°On the side of the government, they should appoint a committee of well-respected and accomplished people to advise them on how to remove hassles for these businesses, like during the economic reforms of 1991. If we did these two, by and large, we will come out of this much stronger.¡±
But most people are already doing that
The timing of Murthy¡¯s suggestions couldn¡¯t have come at a worse time, considering today¡¯s Labour Day -- a day that celebrates 8 hours a day work routine, where it suggested 8 hours for work and eight hours for leisure.
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People have lashed Murthy¡¯s statements, while claiming that they¡¯ve been doing that, even more, before the lockdown. Others have called out Mr Murthy for suggesting in the past how he claimed there has been no invention in India in the past 60 years.
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Even in the lockdown, their work-load has only gotten worse, as now they need to do household chores along with the work assigned to them. Some have even spoken about the toll it took on their physical and mental health.
Work from home becoming the norm
While many claim that work from home culture that was recently embraced by various companies, Murthy feels that workers in India lack the discipline to make it productive.
He said, ¡°The need of the hour is to improve productivity. While it is a great idea to say that we¡¯ll all work from home, unless there is a clear productivity standard that we have defined unless every one of us is asked to achieve that productivity standard, work from home won¡¯t work.¡±
He stated the need for creating a baseline, a standard for productivity for working from home is paramount, ¡°First let every industry ¨C finance, information technology, etc. ¨C define productivity standards for work from home. Once this is defined for each designation, then you can work from anywhere you want,¡±
