The Overwork Epidemic

It’s 11 pm on a Monday night, you are most probably cosily tucked in or enjoying a good old movie. But your next-door neighbour or even a family member for that matter, is stuck at the office, toiling for an extra hour or two to impress that boss, to get that promotion or what not. Unfortunately, this is not a once-in-a-while incident, rather it is reflective of a broader issue that is characteristic of Indian employment—work more but get paid just the same or even less.

The tragic death of a twenty something employee at Ernst and Young (EY) which was attributed to a stressful working environment has sparked concerns over this trend’s worst manifestations. Such cases of suicide due to work are unfortunately becoming a dangerous new normal in India, with cases of a banker collapsing in Lucknow and an engineer in Chennai. To make matters worse, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy famously lends support to a 70-hour work week, a sentiment which was echoed by OLA CEO Bhavish Aggarwal.

Hustle Culture: A Glamorous Trap

India’s work culture has roots in its colonial past, where labour laws prioritized industrial productivity over worker welfare. This legacy persists, with modern corporations viewing employees as expendable resources rather than stakeholders. It is common for middle class youth in India to glorify the careers of these heads of corporations and most of the times, there are under family or societal pressure to mirror their achievements or at least seen to be toiling to achieve the same.

Naturally, what these very public figures choose to speak in public has a huge bearing on how young individuals perceive themselves and their individual capacities. They are seen endorsing hustle-culture—an idea that found support during the entrepreneurial boom in the Silicon Valley in the 90s. It is a trope that normalises workaholism and imposes a false belief that working hard and pushing our limits at the expense of our mental and physical well-being should be glamorised and worn as a badge of honour.

This gives a false sense of hope and security to employees to pick up overtime and go the proverbial extra mile, however, this often ends with disastrous consequences. Studies show that long working hours are directly correlated with occupational health hazards such as stress, depression, fatigue, insomnia, etc regardless of the place of work. This relation, coupled with the harsh reality of poor working conditions, time involved in travelling to the workplace which usually involves catching an overcrowded mode of public transport brings disastrous consequences in the form of reduced leisure, family and personal time and is nothing short of an ordeal.

Gaps in the Legal Framework

One would think that a country with the world’s largest youth population would have effective laws in place to optimise and reap the benefits of the productivity of this age bracket, but the legal system disappoints yet again. The only relevant legislation that attempts to address overtime work is the Factories Act, 1948 (“the Act”). The Act entitles the employee to receive double payment for any hours worked beyond the traditional 8-9 hours per day (that is, 48 hours per week). Despite such a utopian provision, large corporations manage to find a loophole by categorising their employees as ‘officers’ or ‘executives’. As the Act only applies to ‘factory workers’, the companies shirk responsibility by leaving white- and blue-collar employees, gig contract-based workers and delivery executives destitute and vulnerable to exploitation.

In light of recent events, Swiggy’s CEO Rohit Kapoor has come out and lent his heartfelt support to the troubled “employees” and assured them that overtime is not the norm and advocated against hustle-culture. However, if one questions the reasons behind Swiggy’s better prices and faster deliveries, one finds a work ethic that is rigged with anti-competitive practices against retailers and job insecurity coupled with inconsistent incentives for its “delivery partners”.

What the Numbers say

India’s high rankings in longest work hours, overwork-related mortalities and workforce burnout reveal troubling patterns that reflect an overworked and strained workforce. These indicators point to systemic issues such as inadequate work-life balance, poor workplace policies, and limited protections for worker health and well-being. The gravity of these issues becomes even starker when contrasted with India’s middling performance in quality of life and human development indices, which measure factors like standard of living, access to essential facilities, and longevity. This contrast underscores a paradox: while the workforce bears an unsustainable burden, it fails to translate into corresponding improvements in living conditions or holistic development.

Within the country itself, metropolitan cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, which are the hubs for accelerating career growth through multinational conglomerates, tech companies and what not, fare much lower than some tier 2 or tier 3 cities in terms of the quality of life.

International Lessons and a Call for Action

This systemic and cultural issue is not restricted to India, Japan also faced similar problems about work related suicides, so much so, that they have a term for it— “karoshi”—meaning death by overwork. However, the death of a 24-year-old employee due to overwork acted as the much needed to impetus for the government to undertake a complete reform of the laws and societal attitudes undergirding this toxic culture. The Japanese government introduced a Stress Check programme as a parameter to check employees’ mental health to preclude suicide triggers down the line.

Something similar along the lines of an objective mental health assessment should be introduced in India, along with regulations mandating employers to inculcate it into the organisational ethos to counteract the cultural barriers that make employees reluctant to appear vulnerable. The government should make attempts to reduce the social stigma attached to mental health problems.

AI can also be leveraged to track overtime work of employees as self-reporting might be affected by personal goals or duties or sometimes due to pressure by employers. It is also essential for employers to recognise that overwork related health problems are a double-edged sword—they not only affect the individual employee but also result in reduced long-term productivity and diminished returns for the organisation.

It is by echoing similar sentiments that some Western countries have adopted a four-day work week. This model is premised on the belief that fewer working hours would increase productivity and promote a healthier work-life balance that results in happier and healthier employees.

It is high time that policymakers in India should step up to reform labour laws such that it uniformly applies to the corporate sector as well as the unorganised sector, coupled with regulations to ensure that employers do not impose unrealistic productivity targets at the cost of employees’ mental and physical health and well-being.