75 Years of Independence, But have our Minds Liberated?

"A show is exhausting when it stinks. It's exhausting when you have to work overtime to make something work." - Pati LuPone

We recently celebrated “Azadi ka Amrit Mohatsav” with great fanfare across the country. It gave us a sense of pride in the progress that we have made over the past 75 years, and we braced ourselves for the challenges that lay ahead of us.

While experiencing these celebrations across the country, this question enticed my mind – “Have we really been liberated?”

This question came to my mind while thinking about the work culture in our offices. We take pride in working long hours. There is nothing wrong with it, if the work demands it sometimes, then I think no one would even think about it before putting up their hand. However, the problem arises when working long hours becomes a habit rather than an exception.

We were ruled by Britishers for 200 years, two entire generations. During the colonial period we were exploited, i.e. the labor in India was used for carrying out tasks at menial rates. During those times also working long hours for the same amount of remuneration was the order of the day. I think working under such oppressive conditions has molded our attitude towards work for over 275 years.

While having this conversation with my friends who are working for various companies as Senior Executives, I realized that they all are slowly becoming victims of this culture. But the more serious thing to be noticed was that they did not think that working long hours was the problem.

200 years of domination and work culture have slowly seeped into our society and have become a norm.

The situation has come to a point where if you are completing your work on time and leaving the office on time, you would probably not be taken as someone who has been working hard. The debate about working hard or working efficiently is a question that I would like to write about some other day.

My perspective is that the Indian talent pool is being exploited very systematically. If you try to raise your voice against overtime, then you will probably be shown the exit gate very soon and you will be replaced by one of us, who is ready to grind it out for more hours at the same or reduced pay.

Humanity has grown, and we have seen much technological development that should have reduced the number of hours required to be put into work, as our productivity would have increased. As per the data available on clockify.me, the average Indian worker works for 2,117 hours/ year. Now compare this with the average number of hours put in by a Prehistoric man i.e. 1,773 hours/ year. We in India are working 119% more hours per year compared to Prehistoric men.

Is this something to be proud of ??????

I think this is an opportunity for us to improve our ways and adopt smarter ways of working. The number of hours salvaged from the office can be utilized to lead a healthy and balanced lifestyle, which I think will further increase our productivity.

I would like to invite opinions from my LinkedIn community as to what you all think about this problem.

Data Source: https://clockify.me/working-hours

Disclaimer: The ideas and views expressed here are purely my observations that I have picked up during my conversations with my friends coming from various fields and industries.