Like so many others, I was shocked by the demise of Anna Sebastian, a young chartered accountant who worked for a Big Four accounting firm, repotedly because she could not cope with the pressures at work. I wrote up an article and sent it in to the Hindu late September. They carried it a few days ago. I reproduce it below:
We need to
address India’s workplace culture
If we are
to address the worst excesses of India’s corporate culture, some form of
regulation seems unavoidable
T.T. Ram
Mohan
In
September, the mother of Anna Sebastian, the young chartered accountant who passed
away in July allegedly due to work stress, said, “They say we have received
freedom in 1947, but our children are still working like slaves.” Her anguished
cry goes to the heart of the issue of workplace culture in India’s corporate
world.
The inquiry report of the Ministry of Labour, promised within 10 days, is still awaited. The corporate world has chosen to remain largely silent on the tragedy. What corporate leader would dare to point fingers at others when the position at his own firm is not very different?
Toxic work culture
The issue is not just long hours or having to put in extra effort to meet a deadline. Employees will gladly slog it out if they are shown respect, appreciated, and feel they are treated fairly. From all accounts, much of corporate India fails on every count. Toxic work culture is pervasive in India’s private sector.
Long hours
flow directly from a focus on the bottom line that comes at the expense of
employees’ well-being. The management employs two people where four are
required. It seeks to motivate the two employees by giving them the wages of
three, thus saving on one employee. Impressive jargon hasbeen created to
justify exploitation of employees and inhuman work hours. Meeting stiff targets
against heavy odds is ‘organisational stretch’. There is ‘variable pay’ to
promote a ‘performance culture’ that translates into a higher stock price —
great for top management that corners most of the stock options. There is a
‘bell curve’ that identifies super-performers as well as under-performers.
There are ‘stress management’ workshops to deal with the burn-out that ensues. Management does not stop to ask itself why it
is creating so much stress in the first place.
Long hours
and employee burnout are typical of the corporate culture of the U.S. but not
of Europe. France has a 35-hour work week. In the rest of Europe, the norm is
about 40 hours. European firms lack competitiveness, did you say? Well,
European standards of living are nothing to scoff at.
It is
unrealistic to try to import the American culture into a setting that could not
be more different. The per capita income in the U.S. is $85,000. In India, it
is $2,700. The typical U.S. employee operates at a level of comfort — in terms
of housing, commuting, health, diet, and leisure — that is way above that of
the Indian employee. In India’s big cities, simply going to office and getting
back can be an ordeal. So are getting school admissions for children (and then
getting them into coaching classes), looking after an elderly parent, and
generally ensuring that the household is ticking along.
Long hours
are only part of the problem. Bosses often use language that can range from
being unprofessional to abusive. During the tenure of Prime Minister Rishi
Sunak, his deputy, Dominic Raab, faced charges of ‘bullying’ from officials he
had worked with in his previous stints as minister. An enquiry found that he
had been “aggressive” and “intimidating” but not “abusive”. Mr. Raab,
nevertheless, had to resign. Such was the fate of the U.K. Deputy Prime
Minister, no less, for having breached norms of civilised behaviour.
One
wonders what would happen if these standards were applied to India’s corporate
world. In the U.S. and in Europe, employees can sue the firm for a range of
objectionable behaviours including those that cause them mental stress. They
often win huge settlements. No such recourse is available in India.
Employees
also feel they are not treated fairly. The performance evaluation system is
often suspect and the ruthlessness with which so-called under-performance is
dealt with will make one squirm. Top
management will talk of “weeding out dead wood”, an expression that shows scant regard for the worth of human beings.
Variable pay is heavily skewed in favour of a handful of individuals at the
top. When those below seethe with resentment at what they perceive as unfair, a
toxic culture is inevitable.
Many
public sector firms have a much better work culture. Employees may not get huge
rewards but they have job security. Unions act as a check on the arbitrary ways
of top management. Inequality in pay is nowhere as glaring as in the private
sector. Officers at the middle and senior levels put in long hours. People have
their grievances. But complaints about a toxic work culture are rarer.
Time to
remedy matters
How do we remedy matters? Corporates can be expected to be respond along predictable lines: there will be affirmations of “core values”, a new “code of conduct” for management, programmes to address the “work-life balance”, more “town hall meetings” with employees. If these could make a difference, we shouldn’t be having a problem in the first instance. The board of directors should be paying attention to the company’s work culture, providing recourse and initiating corrective measures. Alas, boards tend to be even more disconnected from reality than the management. Moreover, they lack the incentives or the motivation to challenge management.
If we are
to address the worst excesses of India’s corporate culture, some form of
regulation seems unavoidable. Regulation may get boards to assume
responsibility for the work culture, engage with employees at lower levels, and
get a sense of what’s going on. The
Nirbhaya episode caused a paradigm shift on the issue of women’s safety. One
hopes that Sebastian’s untimely demise will likewise turn out to be a defining
moment for India’s workplace culture.
