90-Hour Work Week: Path to Success or Burnout?

Long working hours, toxic work culture, mental health struggles, and work life balance --- these topics have dominated conversations around modern workplaces. As the debate intensifies, top industrialists and start-up founders come up with different views on the ideal working hours. Starting with Infosys cofounder NR Narayana Murthy’s ‘70-hour work week’ remark, the argument took a more heated turn when Larson & Turbo chairman SN Subrahmanyan suggested ’90-hour work week’ for “India’s growth and development”.

But the question arises: Does long working hours really help in the country’s growth? Let’s take an example of the United States. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), America’s GDP per hour worked stood at $70 in 2023 but the country’s average working hours were just 38. The data highlights that longer working hours do not always correlate with higher productivity.

India, too, holds a prominent position in the global overwork arena. The ILO report revealed that India ranks at 13^th spot among the world’s most overworked countries. On an average, Indian employees work for 46.7 hours every week, with 51 per cent of its workforce working even more than 49 hours weekly. Still, the country’s GDP remains lower than that of developed nations where employees typically work for fewer hours.

For instance, countries like Germany and Japan, which are known for shorter work weeks and focus on work-life balance, boast much higher GDP per capita than the countries encouraging longer hours. This contrast raises a critical question whether overwork is the key to economic growth or it comes at the cost of well-being.

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Deadly Cost of Overwork

The United Nations, in a 2021 report, indicated that long working hours can have severe consequences on a person’s physical and mental health. In fact, it can even kill you. The joint assessment by the UN’s health and labour agencies in September 2021 stated that work-related injuries and illnesses kill nearly two million people a year. It also highlighted 19 occupational risk factors like prolonged sitting, manual handling of loads, etc.

Edelweiss Mutual Funds CEO Radhika Gupta shared her personal experience of working for 100 hours a week and revealed why it didn’t work. “I worked 100 hours a week for four months on my first project....around 18 hours a day with one off. I was miserable 90 per cent of the time. I cried in office bathrooms, ate chocolate cake at 2 am and was hospitalised twice. I was not productive in those hours,” she said.

Even a World Health Organisation (WHO) had earlier found that working 55 or more hours per week can increase the risk of stroke by 35 per cent, hence, the risk of dying from heart disease up by 17 per cent. Some health experts also come forward on 90-hour work week debate, highlighting the importance of optimal work hours.

“After 70-hours work week debate, there is another top boss wanting his employees to work 90 hours per week and justifies his stand by a misogynistic remark. A workaholic exhorting others to become workaholics. Do such people understand relationships, family responsibilities, weekly chores, parenting, social bonds, hobbies, stress management, burnout, mental health” a therapist wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

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Dr Sudhir Kumar at Apollo Hospitals also listed various health issues linked with longer working hours, calling Subrahmanyam’s 90-hour work week “a recipe for disaster”. He said overworking is associated with higher risk of heart attack and stroke, premature death, burnout, lower productivity at work, negative impact on employee’s work life balance, detrimental relationships, lesser time for sleep and exercise, and higher risk of depression, anxiety and stress.

“Throwing out such exaggerated figures trivialises genuine effort and hard work. Blanket statements like these overlook critical nuances—humans simply cannot maintain productivity for such long stretches. In many professions, working such excessive hours could lead to catastrophic consequences. For instance, I’d never board a flight knowing the pilots have been working 90 hours a week,” Sabarinath Warrier, cofounder, Healspan told Outlook Business.

Typically, the standard working duration that employees are supposed to work is eight hours and 40-hours per week. However, reports indicate that the number has increased significantly over the time. The structure isn’t modern, it belongs to the industrial revolution days when employees worked as much as 100 hours a week. But what led to the 40-hour work week norm then?  

Henry Ford’s 40-Hour Work Week Theory

The conversation around long working hours and their impact isn’t new; it just intensifies with new remarks. Over a century ago, Ford Motor founder Henry Ford reduced then standard 60 plus hours to boost productivity, and pioneered the 40-hour work week concept with no changes in wages. The policy was enforced on September 25, 1926 when factories needed to run all the time and employees were working 10-16 hours a day.

However, the industrialist’s vision was not his employees’ comfort or to protect their health. He was more capital oriented. Ford realised that customers needed to buy things, and go for shopping to relax. For this, they needed more time off work. In this growing consumer market and companies growing profitable, consumers should have enough time to spend money.

“Leisure is an indispensable ingredient in a growing consumer market because working people need to have enough free time to find uses for consumer products, including automobiles. It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either ‘lost time’ or a class privilege,” Ford had said in an interview to World Work magazine.

On the other hand, Henry’s son Edsel Ford, as quoted by The New York Times, said, “Every man needs more than one day a week for rest and recreation...The Ford Company always has sought to promote an ideal home life for its employees. We believe that in order to live properly every man should have more time to spend with his family.”

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His employee-friendly approach extended beyond work hours. In 1914, Ford doubled employee wages to $5 for an eight-hour workday as compared to the previous $2.34 for a nine-hour day amid rising unemployment and labour unrest. This move shocked his peers but led to a surge in production as it enhanced workers’ morale and created a loyal workforce for the company.

Fast forward to today, the push for gruelling schedules like the 90-hour work week concept seems ‘unrealistic’ in the long run. Consider this: 90 hours at work out of total 168 hours in a week leaves only 11 hours per day for other things, including travel time, meals, rest, sleep, family, and personal responsibilities. It’s a model that raises serious questions about feasibility, productivity, health, and quality of life. While the conversation centres on expecting extra working hours, there’s no mention of offering extra pay in return.

It even fosters the toxic work culture that prioritises ‘quantity over quality’ and ‘output over human welfare’. Also, companies are embracing artificial intelligence and automation to enhance efficiency and reduce the burden on employees. Yet paradoxically, business giants continue to push for longer working hours.