L&T Chairman Suggests 90-Hour Work Week, says 'Happy to Make you Work on Sundays'

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Chairman S.N. Subrahmanyan has sparked an online outrage with his comments suggesting employees should work 90 hours a week including Sundays.

The comments came during an internal employee interaction meeting, a clip of which got picked on Reddit resulting in the outrage.

This comment has reignited an year old work-life balance debate between Netizens and founders like Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, Greptile CEO Daksh Gupta and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The Comment

In the video, Sumeet Chatterjee, Chief Communications Officer at L&T is seen asking the chairman, " Why are L&T employees asked to work on Saturdays despite being a top conglomerate?” In response, the chairman says, “I regret I am not able to make you work on Sundays, to be honest. If I can make you work on Sundays, I will be more happy, because I work on Sundays also.”

Mr Subrahmanyan questioned the employees on what they were getting on taking time off at home on Sundays. “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can the wives stare at their husbands? Get to the office and start working”, he said.

The Outrage

This comment did not sit well with the Netizens. The reddit post on r/indiasocial received around 950 upvotes and 260 comments. One user remarked, “How long can employees stare at screens and fat*** managers?”

“L and T do 90 percent of their projects via 3rd party contractors, and all that company does is retrofitting sh**t, no innovation, nothing.” another user said.

Comparison to Narayana Murthy

A few months back, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy faced some heat for his views advocating a 70-hour work week. "India's work productivity is one of the lowest in the world… my request is that our youngsters must say, 'this is my country, I want to work 70 hours a week,'” Murthy had said.

The L&T Chairman’s comment has drawn a comparison of his view with Murthy’s.

A social media user commented, "And here I'm thinking L&T is a good company, seems like everyone's following Narayana Murthy's footsteps," a user commented. A second user said: "I was there in this town hall yesterday. *** wants us to work for 90 hrs per week. NEXT Narayana Murthy!”