For the average Indian, the current work week is the longest it has ever been, totaling almost 47 hours. According to recent labor statistics, India has one of the most overworked workforces in the world, with longer hours than China, Singapore and even Japan, a country famous for its work culture ruthless. On average, an Indian employee works 13 hours more per week than a German employee.
Nearly 90% of those working in the Asian country are informal, unregistered workers, for whom exploitation is commonplace. However, working conditions for registered employees are also alarming, particularly in the corporate sector, where working practices have not changed for decades and where, critics say, the profit motive remains king.
In July, Anna Sebastian Perayil, a 26-year-old accountant who worked in the Indian offices of accounting giant Ernst and Young (EY), died four months after joining the company. In a letter written after her death, Anna’s mother said the suffocating pressure of the “overwhelming” work environment took a toll on her daughter and led to her death.
“He worked late into the night, even on weekends, without even taking a break,” said the letter, which went viral across India. “The relentless demands and pressures to meet unrealistic expectations are unsustainable and have cost us the life of a young woman with so much potential. » In her letter, the mother also points out that no one from the company attended her daughter’s funeral.
A former EY employee, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his job, says the toxic work environment reported by Peyaril’s mother was standard practice at the company and came from the highest levels.
“Life is brutal and everyone is overloaded,” he says. Workdays of 12 or 13 hours a day, ending around 10 p.m., were the norm, as was working both weekend days.
He said contempt and degradation of employees as resources rather than human beings was commonplace. “There is an extreme hierarchy. Senior managers bully their subordinates to keep them always alert. They shouted and threw files, and often people started crying,” he adds.
One of the problems highlighted by this former employee is the competition generated around positions in these companies. More and more young Indians are going to college, but the number of jobs in the business sector has not grown enough to meet demand, so only 40% of graduates are employed. There are often tens of thousands of candidates for the same position, and multinational companies like Ernst and Young are the most sought after.
“There is no incentive for large companies to change their practices, because leaders know that if one person does not perform as expected or quits, thousands of people will take their place,” he says. “Only productivity and long working hours count, without taking into account the well-being of employees. It is difficult for this to change soon.”
EY India head Rajiv Memani issued a statement saying the high-pressure allegations are “completely alien to our corporate culture” and that the company attaches “utmost importance to the well-being of our employees “.
In a second comment, sent to the Guardian, EY said it was “deeply saddened” by Peyaril’s death. “We take the letter written by the family with the greatest seriousness and humility. “We place the highest importance on the well-being of all employees and will continue to look for ways to improve,” the company says.
However, many point out that excessive demands are not the exclusive preserve of large accounting firms. Narayana Murthy, one of the founders of Infosys, India’s leading information technology (IT) company, suggested last year that for India to become a global economic power, young people should work 70 hours per week.
Ravneet, who previously worked at an IT company, describes a similarly toxic work environment, where employees were not allowed to chat or socialize in the workplace, all their breaks were strictly monitored, and their salaries were arbitrarily reduced .
“Everything we did was closely monitored,” he says. “They knew they could exploit people because everyone is desperate and waits years to get these types of jobs. They cannot afford to lose them, which is why they do not complain even if they know they are being exploited or that labor laws are being violated.
Ravneet says working there took a toll on his mental health, until one day he was fired without being told why.
Employees in other sectors, from media to the entertainment industry, say the problem is also endemic in their fields of work. Sara, who has worked in the corporate events industry for over a decade, says it’s completely normal to work 16-hour days and receive tasks at 11 p.m. on Sunday only to complete them early in the morning Monday.
According to Sara, “these companies encourage truculent dynamics in the workplace because they believe it’s good for business for employees to feel insecure and threatened because they work harder.”
Ultimately, Sara chose to become self-employed and thus free herself, at least in part, from the toxic corporate culture of the office where she worked. “We barely have time to eat well or sleep well and we end up losing sight of ourselves,” he explains. “Of course it causes a lot of damage, but no one seems to care. »
Translation by Julián Cnochaert.
