I've had the fortune of having worked in 3 countries so far. India is by far the most exciting place to be in 2024. But there's something about our work ethic that just concerns me. In both white and blue collar.
In most other countries, I've observed people strictly sticking to the 9 to 5, working diligently in those hours - not wasting too much time on chai sutta breaks, instagram browsing, gupshup etc.
They work for 8 hours, then leave. And think about work directly the next day.
In India, most of us spend more hours - but very obviously very few of those hours are productive. In fact, I lately feel that too many people around me are doing even 2-3 hours of work on a good day.
We end up just staying around, passing time, and then go back home. When we could have achieved so much more.
Work ethic has fallen. Work hours have gone up.
We need to be more mindful of our actions, we need to work well at work, and then do well at home.
I think it's a function of being over populated. There are 1.5-2 people doing what 1 person should be doing, hence this effect.
Needs to be fixed, it's the sign of a major problem in the workforce. Thoughts?
We don't end up staying long hours because we need to. But because we have to, so that the manager doesn't feel like we leave the office by "half day".
Also, they have a leverage that they can shut their laptops at 5 and nobody will reach out to them. But here in India, managers do reach out for escalations, or make us attend lat evening calls because it's afternoon in Europe or morning in NA. The people sitting in Europe or NA are not made to wake up early or attend night calls to accommodate us during our actual 9-5.
People also chit chat etc. bcz they know for sure that they have to sit for long hours..so they need to take small breaks in the day. No one has the capacity to work 10-11 hrs without any breaks.
Here it would never be possible to have such a strict 9-5.
I don’t think this is true. I have seen my dad work 9 to 5 for all his life, while being in a private company. That’s the normal I saw. Somehow it has changed in our generation only..
I guess competition has increased and hence people have to fight way too much for hike, promotion or even just to keep the job. it is not possible to compare our parents' gen with us.
I pray for your directs if you ever become a manager 💀💀
I am telling this because if you have ever worked in a multinational company, you will frequently have night meetings, brainstorming sessions, customer calls and many cross geo interaction. So it does not make sense to stay in the office from 10-4 since you will eventually have to work at night too. Fortunately Microsoft is very flexible in this aspect.
Exactly this. Why do Indians only are compelled to work at night to accommodate other countries' employees. They are never told to work beyond or start before their 9-5. So even if it is not about clocking the hours in office, we all do end up working more hours than the EU/NA counterparts.
While a lot of this has to do with inflated population, it also boils down how employer and employee perceive work. Indian employers especially, are less result oriented. They would see (want) clocking 10 hours a day than actually having the business grow. And so employees have molded accordingly. It's more 'show' than outcome.
@BiryaniEnthu I agree that we work differently
But I think even places where things are different - where these compulsions don't exist and where output is prioritized, we still passing time in office where others would not have.
I don't know why this is.
We have got wired like that. The previous generation than ours worked mostly in government setup, where job security and pension was a perk. Private sector demanded more agility, which couldn't transcend. So employers became harsh, and employees lazed out.
Though this is changing with the startup culture. Flexibility is big time perk now
Well, I did exactly that. Worked from 11 to 6 (although work starts at 10 but yk BLR traffic no matter how early you leave, there's always something that acts as a blocker). In that 11 to 7, I had my lunch hours as well as relax time with team (a.k.a sutta time), yet I always completed all my day's work on time. No delays, no push over to next sprints, no backlogs.
Later when company decided to layoff, my lead and manager felt that I was not spending enough time at work and getting more things done. Its like they wanted me to work from 11 to 11 without any extra salary. But the fact that they never conveyed this to me, despite being friendly (more like a brother) and chit chatting about everything and anything, is what hurt me the most.
Now I'm laid off for reason not related to performance or character or behaviour or anything else, but just because I did not spend any extra time outside of the 8hrs of work I spent.
I only got to know about this quite recently from my ex colleague when I kept asking her if she knew the reason behind my layoff.
It's been almost a year now since my layoff, gave and cleared many interviews but just before the HR round was scheduled, a lot of the companies either backed out saying they're on a hiring freeze or that their investors have frozen the hiring funds or that they found a better candidate who has agreed to work for less pay (5LPA) or literally just ghosted like the HR does not exist anymore.
One wrong decision and now my entire careers feels off track, derailed, lost, depressed, aimless, lifeless 😞.
Sorry to hear this. And then people ask why brain drain happens from India. This. This is the reason. You can't change the deep-rooted bs system.
Trust me. I was always of the mindset that India has so much to offer and I don't need to travel abroad for opportunities.
Well this experience in the past 12 months has enraged me like "fcuk this shit hole" and I'm actively looking for opportunities everywhere in the world. Idk if I have to learn a new language to communicate. All I want is to either be building an idea into reality OR be a part of the purpose and vision that the company believes OR be in a system that values humans as humans and not fcukin slaves.
1.5-2 people are doing the job of 1 person?
U always feel I'm doing the job of 2-3 people even after taking chai-sutta breaks.
You don't need to generalize 'India' my friend.
If you are an Indian, you should be aware that Indian employers pay less, ask for more work and on most situations, people are made to work for longer hours and they do the job of 2-3 people. Not the other way round.
I understand. Everything you mentioned was quite resonant on my team as well. The work ethic has fallen down quite apparently. The problem I see is we misunderstood what is meant by "work life balance" and started to take leverage during work hours.
I led a 15 member team and I had kept my policies liberal - work according to the timeline. I don't care when you login and logo out. I set goals and asked team to meet goals. Despite any positive approach, the moment the goals become ambitious and adventurous only a few would want to do it. Even the few who are naturally driven would want to carefully not show to their friends that they are passionate workers because they will be treated differently or left out.
You will be called a great manager if you can emotionally resonate, play to the tunes, arrange for parties and fun activities. You will be called a bad manager while doing all the above and motivate the team to do more.
I just felt that no body want to learn anything new. Most are like, ok I'm here in this company after a hard struggle. And I ain't leaving.
Workforce is plagued.
It’s true. Saw a reel on Instagram about this recently. As you grow in your career, you increasingly pretend that you’re working. You need to get good at faking work.
One major factor is working from office. WFH allows people much more flexibility, hence less time required to commit to work and its commute. Less mentally draining too.
Office work in India has always been 50-50 work and bakchodi from what I've mostly seen. Actual productive meaningful work anyways doesn't happen beyond 4-5 hours, brains get fried and productivity falls beyond a certain point.
If you stay past 5 your manager will think oh this guy takes so much efforts. On the other hand, if you finish work well within time and leave at 5, ur manager and peers will think oh he only does the easy things. It was a one hour task only. And he does not take work seriously because he leaves as soon as the clock strikes 5.
And this mentality is the problem. Not the overt population. Companies don’t hire people because there are more people unemployed.
Trust me bro, i have experienced this first hand.
I leave at 3-3:30, my team leaves way before 5. Not all teams are the same not all managers are the same not all work places are the same
I believe quality of life plays an important part
Here in India people literally live for survival but in Europe I believe they would live for passion which will enhance their skill overtime, they have better university program which actually has result
What do we get after college? Nothing
There are many things, that's why we have dreams to go there not the other way around
And that's why we are a third world country and we will never upgrade
Works never seems to end and there are hardly any boundaries left. Unless you are in management, it’s super difficult to define and maintain boundaries. How have we come to this ? Isn’t technology supposed to make us all time-rich ?
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