Companies Can Gloss Over Employee Burnout At Their Own Peril

Even while accepting, for the sake of argument, that employees across levels working 70-90 hours weekly can sometimes prove of value (when a company must roll out a critical project which could change its fortunes, or is facing an existential crisis, for instance), the number of hours the staff spend at workplaces can never by itself prove a gamechanger for any organisation.

For if the number of hours ‘worked’ was the main criterion for companies to make it to the list of the biggest enterprises worldwide, India would have, by now, many more than just two companies featuring in the list of the top 100 companies globally.

Reliance Industries and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) were the only Indian companies to find a place in the list of top 100 companies worldwide in the Fortune Global 500 Ranking (2024).

From much before the “70 hours” and “90 hours” statements began doing the rounds, employees at many Indian companies were already working more than 40 hours per week. As per International Labour Organisation (ILO) data, an employed person in India works 46.7 hours per week on average. The same ILO data points out that 51 per cent of Indian employees’ work “49 or more hours per week”.

To put these figures in context, statistics provided by the ILO showed that on average, an employee in China worked 46.1 hours a week. In the UK, it was 35.9 hours, and in the US, it was 38 hours. 

So, what is the point being made here?

Simply that, with a new financial year not too far away, Indian companies are better served by moving away from the debate on 70-90-hour work weeks and focusing instead on something far more important to effectively deal with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that businesses are confronted with currently — namely, how to prevent employee burnout by striving to become great work places, rather than staying merely content with being certified as one. 

A FICCI-BCG report titled ‘India’s HR Revolution: Building Workplaces for the Future’, released in September 2024, had highlighted that 58 per cent of Indian employees report high burnout rates.

Earlier, in June 2024, a CII report titled ‘Mapping India’s Corporate Health and Wellness Landscape’ had also underlined a similar disturbing pattern on employee burnout. India’s corporate sector employs over 50 million people.

“Testing times, as the present, call for companies to accord greater value to smart work and to start walking the talk on employee wellbeing to ensure that productivity levels can rise. All this talk around having 70-hour or 90-hour workweeks is a distraction which serves little purpose,” former Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Aloke Mookerjea said, when asked for his views on employee burnout.

Mumbai-based HR expert, and Aspiroglobal Management Consulting founder and CEO Bhaskar Bhattacharya echoed a similar sentiment. “Productivity can take a hit when you have very long work hours,” he said.

Mookerjea and Bhattacharya make good points. The interests of local companies are hardly served on a consistent basis if some of their best employees find it tough to bring all of themselves to workplaces over a prolonged period because of them displaying burnout syndromes.

Key employees showing signs of being frequently exhausted and less engaged at work, or showing a decline in productivity levels due to increasing workplace-related stress, can never spell good news for any company, irrespective of its size.

Gallup’s 2024 ‘State of the Global Workplace’ report had revealed that only 14 per cent of Indian employees feel they are “thriving”, compared to the global average of 34 per cent, and the regional South Asia average of 15 per cent.

The Gallup study further pointed out that 32 per cent of Indian employees’ experience stress, again higher than the South Asia average.

It is relevant to mention that much as there is often a lot of nice words said at various industry forums on how companies are stepping up their act on putting in place best-in-class employee wellbeing measures, there has always been a huge question mark around how effectively these steps are implemented by them, not just in India, but worldwide. 

“Mindfulness and wellbeing apps aren’t the problem, but when bad management uses them as a fix, it can make things worse,” Gallup CEO Jon Clifton had said in the company’s 2024 ‘State of the Global Workplace’ report.  

“It’s understandable when you consider that a major cause of workplace stress is not having the materials and equipment you need to do your job effectively.

That problem can’t be solved with a yoga mat; it requires action from management. And the perception that organisations are investing in areas other than what employees need to get the job done can exacerbate stress,” Clifton had gone on to add.

In a country like India boasting of the world's largest population, there is sometimes a temptation for companies to think that they can always find people to fill vacant positions.

But that temptation needs to be tempered with the realisation that there is a huge difference between getting employees and getting the right kind of employees who possess the ability and inclination to take an organisation to greater heights.

Admitted, it is hard to dispute that given the multiple pressures that local companies face currently due to a slowing domestic economy and a rise in external risk factors, all those involved with an organisation need to step up.

But ‘stepping up’ merely extending to employees spending longer hours at workplaces can never be a foolproof solution to address the growth-related challenges of a firm.

Creating an environment where employees can bring in their best every day is always in a firm’s best interest. Companies taking the required measures in this regard should be a natural consequence. Being oblivious to the likelihood of employee burnout is a luxury that employers can ill-afford. 

A combination of well-rounded policies on employee wellbeing and the intent to implement those measures on the ground is thus what one would expect from Indian companies in the new financial year.

Some of the steps which would be nice to see being implemented with greater vigour, going forward, to reduce the incidence of employee burnout would be:

1. Fostering of an empathetic and listening culture across all levels, including top management.
2. Enterprises demonstrating greater commitment to the cause of work-life balance, with policies on balanced work timings, avoidance of making calls and sending mails during non-office hours, etc., and monitoring mechanisms established to check how such policies are being implemented.
3. Companies putting in place systems and processes that provide proper support to employees experiencing mental health issues, which are not solely designed to insulate enterprises from legal liabilities.
4. Companies coming up with tailor-made wellness programmes for employees, based on the level and responsibilities of the job holder.
5. Efficacy of company wellness programmes being made an agenda item for discussion in all corporate board meetings.

(The writer is a current affairs commentator. Views are personal)