A recent statement by a leading industrialist in India opened the floodgates to the discussion on working hours and their impact on the health and well being of employees. In November 2023, eminent business leader NR Narayanamurthy, while speaking about productivity in India in a podcast, said that India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world and young people should be willing to work for atleast 70 hours a week. This would significantly contribute to not only economic development of our country but also match pace with advanced economies like China and the United States. He urged business leaders to interact with younger employees and emphasize the value of hard work, dedication, and commitment. Most of India’s corporate leaders including CP Gurnani of Tech Mahindra and Sajjan Jindal of JSW supported Mr Narayanamurthy. With the exceptions business leaders like Harsh Mariwala thought that rather than focusing on the number of hours, both employees and employers should emphasise on the quality and passion they brought to the hours which fostered growth and learning.

Just after taking over the micro-blogging site X, formerly known as twitter in 2022, Elon Musk had famously sent a company wide communication at midnight demanding that they commit to working “long hours at high intensity” or take a three month severance. Musk who has claimed to working 120-hour weeks, often sleeping on the factory floor of Tesla to get work done is obviously a fan of longer working hours and no one can deny the great success his work ethic has brought him.

A few days before the holiday season last year, another CEO, Wayfair’s Niraj Shah told employees that they should expect to work longer hours, saying that “hard work is essential for success”. Therefore, it does appear that more often than not, business leaders across the globe have advocated for and set the tone for longer working hours.

I was discussing this issue with a friend who had a long stint and career in the advertising industry, which is notoriously known for long working hours. This reminded me of the case of Japan’s largest advertising firm, Dentsu, where President of the firm had to resign after an intern killed herself for having put in more than 100 hours of overtime in a month leading to stress and her being “physically and mentally shattered”. ‘Karoshi’, which in Japanese means death due to overwork, not only sees about 2000 deaths through suicide due to work related stress, but many more from lifestyle diseases brought about by spending long hours at the workplace.

While business leaders want to equate longer working hours with higher productivity, it would be pertinent to look for research that validates this hypothesis. Unfortunately, research shows that longer working hours, or the culture of presenteeism did not necessarily lead to elevated levels of productivity. Infact, in a study referenced by Harvard Business Review (HBR) in a paper on longer work hours, Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University, who conducted a study on consultants found that managers could not objectively differentiate between employees who worked eighty hours and those that pretended to. Furthermore, it is also interesting that Dr Reid was unable to find any evidence that those who worked more accomplished more than those who worked less.

While the longer working hours did not significantly increase work outcomes, or in other words, did not bring any productivity benefits to organisations, they did come at a cost… to the employee.

Physical and Mental Impact of Long working hours

In 2021, a joint report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) points to the increased risks of cardiovascular diseases and strokes along with severe mental health impacts due to overworking. The report further says that “Physical and mental strain of the overworked people can start from acute physiological responses such as fatigue, stress, impaired sleep, and unhealthy lifestyle changes in response to the stress.” Additionally, overworking also leads to productivity losses due to burnouts and occupational injuries, which Gallup estimates costs companies dearly about $322 billion leading to higher turnovers and diminished output.

Longer working hours have impacted the physical and mental health of the employees. The long hours of sedentary abstain the employees from spending time for exercise on contrary leading to weight gain, increased risk of heart disease and musculoskeletal issues.Further the associated stress often leading to unhealthy eating and drinking habits causing heart diseases, type 2 diabetes, and even impaired memory. Also, inadequate and erratic sleep pattern effect ability to concentrate, slower reaction time and mood swings.

Research by the Sleep Foundation finds that ‘trying to work while sleep deprived can significantly impact job performance.’ The body's system performs less than optimally when it doesn't get enough sleep.Overworked neurons in the brain cause cognitive impairment, sluggish physical reactions, and emotional exhaustion in such cases. This not only slows down the decision-making ability but also increases the amount of errors employees make in performing routine duties.

In research published by the National Institute of Health (NIH) in 2019, authors Kapo Wong, Alan H.S Chan and S. C Ngan have referred to a positive corelation between long working hours and experiencing depression and anxiety. A similar study published in Occupational Medicine Magazine by Alfonso, Fonseca and Pires in 2017 concludes that longer working hours are associated with poorer mental health status and increased levels of anxiety and symptoms of depression.

Impact on mental health in a post Covid world

This information on the corelation of mental health issues and long working hours needs to be particularly seen through the lens of a post covid world. The World Health Organisation (WHO), in the World Mental Health report published in 2022 noted that the mental health of a large part of the population has been impacted. Many have become more anxious, and a great number of people have reported ‘psychological distress and symptoms of depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress.’ A subsection of people, especially the younger generation have been left vulnerable to social disconnectedness and isolation which has fuelled anxiety, stress and mental health problems. A further increase in mental health problems associated with longer mandated working hours will turn the current mental health issues being experienced by the post covid world into a tsunami, with both mental and physical health services being severely impacted during the pandemic.

Intersectionality of Gender

We also need to be cognizant of the intersectionality of gender and the impact of long working hours. Wong, Chan and Ngan have recorded that female workers were more prone to experiencing depression and anxiety than male workers while working the same number of hours. In a response to Mr Narayanamurthy’s call to work 70-hour work weeks, Radhika Gupta, the CEO and Managing Director of Edelweiss Mutual Fund rightfully pointed out women often tend to work more than 70-hour work weeks anyway as they are seen to be the primary caregivers in the family. A 70-hour work week may increase the workload on the woman to over 100 hours including her traditional gender role at home.

History of the eight-hour work week

Paradoxically, calls to increase the working hours by business leaders adds to business costs through poor productivity, higher turnover, absenteeism and finally diminished output.

This, however, is not new information. The first eight-hour work week was established in 1594 by King Philip II of Spain by a royal edict. He had mandated an eight-hour work week to ensure that workers rested enough and did not miss a point of the work, potentially referring to not making mistakes at work. The early days of the trade union movement saw unions organise for shorter working days and better working conditions. The International Workingmen’s Association first demanded an eight-hour workday in 1866 at it’s Congress in Geneva. Subsequently, Karl Marx had stressed on the importance of the eight-hour work day for the health of the worker, since "by extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production...not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself." (Das Kapital, 1867). The eight-hour workday was discussed by the ILO which  resulted in the Hours of Work (industry) Convention in 1919 and subsequently ratified by many countries, forming part of the labour movement and May Day and Labour Day celebrations in many countries. The Ford Motor Company, had, in 1914, cut the work shift from nine hours to eight, doubled the worker’s pay to $5 a day and not only saw an increase in productivity, but a significant increase in profit margins (from $30 million to $60 million in 2 years).

Impact of long work hours on Productivity

In 2009, about a 100 years later after the adoption of a eight-hour work day, two Harvard Business Review authors, Leslie A. Perlow and Jessica Porter conducted an experiment with consultants at the Boston Consulting Group in which they required consultants to take what they called ‘Predictable time off’. At the end of the experiment, conducted over a period of four years, the authors found that taking Predictable time Off actually made the teams of consultants more productive.

Not only do shorter workdays make employees more productive, due to the associated mental and physical impacts, the longer work days actually work out to be detrimental to a company’s bottom line, showing up in higher insurance, turnover and absenteeism costs.

Data shows that the most productive nations work shorter hours. Luxembourg, which topped the list of productivity in 2021, worked 1427 hours per year, which translates to 29.72 hours per week.

Expectations of the new age workforce

In a world where AI is threatening to take over jobs, it would be in the interest of businesses to use it to improve productivity in organisations. It is incumbent upon organisations to introduce productivity hacks to increase profitability, while focusing on a strong wellbeing strategy which keeps the employee engaged, motivated and productive. With a workforce which is increasingly going to be almost exclusively composed of Millennials and Gen Z workers, it is also important to understand what they expect from workplaces. A recent study of the European labour market by the European Labor Authority on the unique characteristics of the Millennials and the Gen Z workforce brings out the fact that as digital natives, both Millennials and the Gen Z are adept at technology and expect employers to make work processes to be digitised where possible, potentially to increase productivity. The Millennial workforce also tends to value work life balance and job flexibility which means that long working hours that impacts their family life is unlikely to be valued by these workers which will lead to greater attrition among the workforce.

However, work life balance is valued not just by the millennials but also by the Gen X workers. My friend, with whom I was discussing the longer working hours as suggested by Mr NR Narayanamurthy, reminded me that as young professional working in advertising, their family life was extremely disturbed due to the long working hours that were expected of them, which eventually took a toll on family and social relationships.

Facing a barrage of criticism post the death of the intern in Dentsu Japan and recognising the importance of a solid work life balance, the firm started turning off its lights at 10 PM to encourage employees to go home. However, in its first white paper on Karoshi in 2016, the government of Japan said one in five employees were still at the risk of death from over work and it was important that attitudes be changed across the board to ensure a better work life balance.

Conclusion

On a concluding notethis is not to suggest that there will not be occasions when employees will not have to put in all-nighters or work long hours when work demands it.  Also, with global workforces, it is often necessary to work beyond the mandated working hours and employees will understand these expectations of the business. That employees need to work hard and be dedicated and committed to their jobs is also a fair expectation of the business. However, it is incumbent on the business to ensure that their employees have a fair work life balance and are physically and mentally fit to contribute at the workplace.  They must ensure that robust policies for well-being exist not just on paper but are implemented in reality.

The key skills that the knowledge workers of today require to be successful at their jobs include decision making, collaboration, strategic thinking and problem solving. As many research studies have pointed out, most of these skills are severely impacted by over-work which cause lack of sleep, stress, anxiety and the associated physical manifestations of them, which are counterproductive for the organisations that demand these longer working hours.

In a world where employees are expected to bring their whole self to work, it is in the interest of the organisations to ensure that employees are at their fittest, both physically and mentally, to ensure that the benefit that they derive from dedication and hard work of these employees is maximised.